With the Patriots hosting the Seahawks in their home opener at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, New England elevated G Michael Jordan and placed OT Chuks Okorafor on the exempt/left squad list on Saturday.
Jordan being a standard elevation for the second week in a row was the expectation after the Patriots ruled out starting left guard Sidy Sow (ankle) on Friday. After suffering the injury in New England's preseason finale last month, Sow will miss a second consecutive game due to his ankle injury. Furthermore, the second-year guard has yet to practice since sustaining the injury, and with a Thursday night game in Week 3, Sow could be looking at an extended absence.
In Week 1, Jordan played all 65 offensive snaps at left guard in the win over the Bengals, allowing two hurries in pass protection. Last week's win in Cincinnati was Jordan's 30th career start, so he has experience and decent movement skills on the interior. For a team that wants to feature outside zone runs, Jordan has looked solid in those schemes, and he has a history of playing against this Ravens-inspired defensive scheme from his time with the Bengals.
Although those are things for Jordan to lean on, the 26-year-old has a more linear build for downhill run schemes and his two hurries allowed were due to a tardy anchor. This week, he'll have to deal with interior penetrators Leonard Williams and Seattle first-rounder Byron Murphy. Jordan isn't a people-moving left guard, but he held his own vs. the Bengals, and New England will take that performance from the fifth-year veteran as a backup guard with Sow injured.
With this being his second standard elevation, the Patriots will need to put Jordan on the 53-man roster soon. Jordan has one more standard elevation before he needs to be signed to the active roster. If the team expected Sow to miss four or more games, one would expect that the Pats would've placed him on in-season injured reserve, so that could signal that Sow will be ready to return by Week 4, or maybe he goes to injured reserve if he had a setback.
It is a good bet that the Patriots will roll with the offensive line they finished the game with in the win over Cincinnati: LT Vederian Lowe, LG Michael Jordan, C David Andrews, RG Layden Robinson, and RT Mike Onwenu against Seattle's pressure defense.
As for Okorafor, it's important not to speculate about the veteran tackle's status. On the field, Okorafor was benched after playing 12 snaps where he allowed three quarterback pressures in six pass-blocking snaps last week. The 27-year-old is a career right tackle who the Patriots were hoping to be a stop-gap left tackle this season. Okorafor has struggled at left tackle, so the team has turned to Lowe, when healthy, as their top left tackle.
Now that he's on the exempt/left squad list, Okorafor does not count toward the 53-man roster. We'll update you here if more information becomes available on Okorafor's status. But, for now, Okorafor is not with the Patriots ahead of Sunday's game vs. the Seahawks. New England's depth options behind starters Vederian Lowe and Mike Onwenu are rookie Caedan Wallace and recent waiver-wire claim Demontrey Jacobs. Jacobs was a healthy inactive last week but will likely be active in Week 2.
New England is gearing up for Sunday's home opener where it's a 3.5-point home underdog to the Seahawks. Two big keys for the Pats to pull off an upset are keeping starting QB Jacoby Brissett upright and controlling the line of scrimmage in the running game, as they did last week. On Saturday, the Patriots used a practice squad elevation to solidify the offensive line depth, with Jordan likely starting at left guard.
The Patriots will host the Seahawks at Gillette Stadium with kickoff at 1 pm ET on Sunday.
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