Onwenu on IR, and the Guard Depth Is Now a Real Question

Mike Onwenu is on injured reserve. The Patriots reworked his contract with performance incentives this offseason — a sign of how much they valued him — and now he's unavailable for the foreseeable future.

The depth chart at guard lists Ben Brown next, with Jake Kubas behind him. Neither logged meaningful snaps last season in any way the numbers can confirm, which is the honest way to say this unit is being asked to hold together on faith. The offensive line was a quiet pillar of the 14-3 run — Drake Maye had time, TreVeyon Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson combined for well over 1,800 rushing yards, and the whole operation moved efficiently. That continuity is now interrupted.

It's worth noting this team has been absorbing losses all month. A.J. Brown went to IR. Carlton Davis is out. The secondary is thin. Now the interior line has a hole. Any one of those is manageable; all of them at once is a different kind of stress test. My read is that the guard situation is the quietest of the bunch, which may be why it hasn't drawn much attention — but quiet problems on the offensive line have a way of becoming loud ones by the fourth quarter.