The Patriots are gearing up for Sunday's home opener against the Seahawks at Gillette Stadium with a mostly clean bill of health.
After being listed as questionable on the team's final injury report, S Kyle Dugger (ankle), DE Deatrich Wise Jr. (shoulder), RG Layden Robinson (shoulder), and RB JaMycal Hasty (knee) are officially active. New England's game-day inactives are G Sidy Sow (ankle), WR Kayshon Boutte, LB Curtis Jacobs, OT Demontrey Jacobs, and rookie QB Joe Milton has been designated as the emergency third quarterback.
As you may have noticed, the Patriots only declared five players inactive because their roster currently has 52 players. On Saturday, New England placed veteran OT Chuks Okorafor on the exempt/left squad list. While on the exempt list, Okorafor doesn't count toward the 53-man roster limit, hence five inactive players, with a report from ESPN's Mike Reiss that Okorafor might not play for the Patriots again this season.
Okorafor was benched after 12 snaps in last week's win over Cincinnati, where he allowed three quarterback pressures in six pass-blocking snaps. After spending six seasons in Pittsburgh, the Patriots signed Okorafor as a free agent this offseason to play left tackle. Okorafor was primarily a right tackle with the Steelers, and the switch to the left side has not gone as planned for the 27-year-old. To be fair, it was lofty to expect Okorafor to transition smoothly to left tackle.
The Patriots will turn to third-year pro Vederian Lowe as their starting left tackle, with third-rounder Caedan Wallace as the primary swing tackle backing up Lowe and RT Mike Onwenu. In Week 1, Lowe allowed a quarterback hit and two hurries working against Bengals stud edge rusher Trey Hendrickson. Lowe will be matched up against Seahawks pass-rusher Boye Mafe this week, who had nine total pressures in Week 1.
As for New England's tackle depth, Wallace played 18 snaps as a jumbo tight end last week. Although he helped open holes in the running game, Wallace was only on the field for one passing play in Week 1. If he's called into action, the rookie's ability to hold up in pass protection is a mystery at this point. Although we've primarily seen him operate at guard, waive-wire claim Zach Thomas is active as an extra layer of depth.
On the interior, rookie right guard Layden Robinson (questionable, shoulder) is officially active. The Patriots added Robinson to the injury report as a limited participant on Thursday, but he was a full participant in Friday's session, suggesting he was good to go for Sunday's game.
New England's projected starting offensive line is LT Vederian Lowe, LG Michael Jordan, C David Andrews, RG Layden Robinson, and RT Mike Onwenu. Last week, the Seahawks had the second-highest pressure rate in the league at 43.1%, while the Patriots allowed the highest pressure rate (44.8%), so this will be a stiff test for the offensive line.
At wide receiver, rookie Javon Baker is officially active for the first time in his NFL career. Baker was a healthy scratch last week in Cincinnati, following an inconsistent end to the preseason and a social media post that HC Jerod Mayo acknowledged was a learning moment for the rookie. Last week, Boutte was active but did not play a snap, so it's unclear if Baker will be able to crack the game-day lineup.
Veteran K.J. Osborn, Tyquan Thornton, DeMario Douglas, and second-rounder Ja'Lynn Polk got all the receiver snaps in the win over the Bengals last Sunday. With the fourth-round pick now active, we'll see if Baker's availability changes the wide receiver rotation for the Patriots.
With members of the Super Bowl champion 2014 team in attendance, the Patriots are 3.5-point underdogs in their home opener on Sunday. New England was a 7.5-point underdog against the Bengals last week and pulled off the upset on the road in Week 1. The Patriots are aiming to surprise the football world yet again on their home turf this week, and they'll have the benefit of not facing Seahawks lead-back Kenneth Walker, who is inactive this week due to an oblique injury.
Along with Walker, starting right tackle George Fant (knee) is also inactive for Seattle. The Seahawks will lean on top backup RB Zach Charbonnet and Stone Forsythe at right tackle. For a Patriots defense that shut down the Bengals offense last week, the key to Sunday's game will be slowing down the Seahawks three-headed monster at wide receiver: DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Without their top running back and right tackle, that becomes easier for New England.
To limit Cincinnati's offense last week, the Patriots most-used coverage structure was cover two (12 drop-backs). New England played the game primarily in a two-high safety shell before the snap and then either stuck in cover two/quarters or rotated into single-high man coverage. The strategy limited the pass-happy Bengals to 10 points, and one would expect the Patriots to play a similar brand of defense on Sunday.
The Patriots will host the Seahawks in their home opener at Gillette Stadium with kickoff at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday.
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