Pettus Lands on IR, and New England Is Auditioning Safeties

Dell Pettus is on injured reserve. That puts him alongside Mike Onwenu, who I noted here two days ago, as the second Patriots starter lost to IR in the same week. The secondary was already thin — Carlton Davis out, Kindle Vildor holding down the DB spot without meaningful depth behind him — and now the back end of the defense has a new hole to fill.

The depth chart at safety doesn't show much. Marcus Jones is listed behind Vildor, and Brenden Schooler is further down, but neither has logged meaningful snaps this season. The Patriots worked out a free agent tight end when that position got thin earlier in camp; my read is they'll do something similar here, cycling through available safeties until someone earns a look. That's not a crisis plan — it's just how roster management works when you're this far into a season and the waiver pool is what it is.

What's worth watching is how many of these secondary losses compound. The cornerback need was already flagged as moderate heading into the year, and now the safety picture has thinned out alongside it. New England's defense carried real weight during that 9-1 run to close the regular season. Asking a patchwork back end to hold that standard is a different ask than it was two months ago.