Patriots Decide Against Making Major Change For Bears Matchup
The Patriots flirted with making a major change prior to Sunday’s matchup with the Chicago Bears.
It’s probably best that they stuck with what has (kind of) worked.
New England rolled with with the offensive line combination of left tackle Vederian Lowe, left guard Michael Jordan, center Ben Brown, right guard Mike Onwenu and right tackle Demontrey Jacobs at Soldier Field, according to Mike Reiss of ESPN. It’s the same group that finished last week’s loss to the Tennessee Titans and started in Week 8 against the New York Jets and Week 6 against the Houston Texans.
Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt discussed the potential of moving off that group, admitting Thursday that there was consideration to shifting Onwenu over to left guard.
“Mike’s our best offensive lineman so we’re going to put him where he can be most successful for us,” Van Pelt said.
Onwenu practiced on the left side Wednesday and has played there before, but you would have to go all the way back to his sophomore season in 2021 — when he got benched for poor performance. New England’s idea presumably was to get the “best five” on the field, with rookie Layden Robinson taking over at right guard.
The risk versus reward just didn’t seem to be worth it, so no change was made… yet.