Ponder and Jacas Get Their Thursday Night Audition in Jacksonville

Dre'Mont Jones is out, and the grounding payload confirms it. Jones signed a three-year deal in free agency this offseason — one of the more significant defensive additions of the camp period — and he hasn't been available. Quintayvious Hutchins, the depth option behind him on the edge, is on injured reserve. That leaves Elijah Ponder, who is active, and Gabe Jacas, the second-round linebacker who opened camp on the NFI list and has been working his way back, as the names New England will lean on Thursday at Jacksonville.

Neither player has logged meaningful snaps at this level yet — at least not enough to show up in the production numbers. That's the honest state of things. The Patriots built their edge-rush plan around Jones, and with him unavailable and Hutchins gone for the year, they're asking two players who haven't established themselves to hold the line in a road game on a short week.

The broader defensive picture has been fraying for a few weeks now. I've been writing about the secondary losing bodies since Carlton Davis went down, and the safety spot since Pettus landed on IR. The pass rush was supposed to be the one area with a clear answer. Right now it doesn't have one either.

Jacksonville isn't a team that will punish a thin edge rush the way some opponents would, but the test is real regardless. What Ponder and Jacas show Thursday will tell the coaching staff something useful — even if what it tells them is that they need to make another phone call before the week is out.