DeVito Gets the Start Against Buffalo, and the Margin for Error Is Gone

Tommy DeVito is the quarterback Sunday. The depth chart has had him listed ahead of Drake Maye since the shoulder issue surfaced, and with the game here, that's no longer a procedural footnote — it's the reality New England is walking into against Buffalo.

The line in front of him is the other half of this. Greg Van Roten is on injured reserve. Jake Kubas has been the starting guard since Van Roten went down, which I noted when it happened — Kubas is now the answer to a question the Patriots hoped they'd never have to ask in a meaningful game. The offensive front that protected Maye through a 14-3 season has been carved down piece by piece since September, and what's left is thinner than anything this team has put out in 2026.

DeVito is a capable backup. He's not Drake Maye, and nobody needs to pretend otherwise. What matters now is whether the protection holds long enough to let the skill players — Diggs, Henry, Henderson, all active — do enough damage to stay in this game. TreVeyon Henderson's availability is the one clean piece of good news on the offensive side of the ball.

The Patriots have been here before in a narrower sense: they won games last year when things got uncomfortable, and they did it on the road more often than at home. Sunday is at home, which is its own small complication given everything we know about that split. But the structural problem is real. This isn't a team managing adversity anymore — it's a team that has run out of margin and now has to find out what's underneath.