A blowout in Jacksonville turned Sunday into a long day for the New England Patriots, and by the end of the 35-6 loss, everybody on the roster had logged snaps.
Head coach Mike Vrabel didn’t sugarcoat what he saw afterward. "My concern level is very high for this football team," Vrabel said postgame.
"I just want to coach and improve. So, I think that's the biggest thing is when you come off a game like that, that you just want to get back and work."
The game script made the snap counts look the way they did. With the Patriots buried late, Drake Maye and Morgan Moses were pulled for backups, and the final drives turned into a chance for deeper parts of the roster to get real work. Tommy DeVito replaced Maye for the final two possessions, while Tanner Arkin and Cameron Latu also saw extended run.
Up front, the numbers reflected both workload and attrition. Alijah Vera-Tucker and Will Campbell each played 63 snaps, a full workload.
Jared Wilson matched Maye with 51 snaps, while Morgan Moses finished with 43. Walter Rouse ended up with a bigger role after more offensive line injuries forced him into right guard, and Ben Brown stayed on the sideline.
Reggie Gilliam’s usage was modest, as he was on the field for just eight snaps.
The Patriots’ offense was spread out by the score, but the defense followed a similar pattern once the game got out of hand. Robert Spillane and Kevin Byard each played 59 snaps, Christian Elliss had 57, Carlton Davis 54, and both Jaylen Reed and Christian Gonzalez reached 52. Elijah Ponder was next at 51, with Gabe Jacas close behind at 49.
There was no one on the field for every snap this time, unlike the previous two weeks. Once the margin ballooned, the Patriots started rotating in backups on both sides of the ball. Spillane, Gonzalez and Byard - players who are usually constants - came off once the game was clearly slipping away.
Jaylen Reed was the most notable defensive development. With Craig Woodson out after a shoulder injury a week earlier, Reed took on a much larger role and finished with the fifth-most snaps among Patriots defenders.
He also broke up a pass that turned into a Marcus Jones interception. Reed, who began the year on special teams, looks headed for a bigger job.
That shift helped create another roster wrinkle. Because Reed was playing more on defense, the Patriots elevated Mike Brown to the active roster to handle the personal punt protection duties. Brown was in his first game of the season after being released during roster cuts and later re-signed to the practice squad.
The Patriots also stuck with the same specialist trio for the third straight week: Andy Borregales, Mitch Wishnowsky and Julian Ashby. For Wishnowsky, it was his first game as the punter since signing to the 53-man roster. Bryce Baringer remains on IR, and Wishnowsky is set to keep the job for at least one more week while Baringer works back to full strength.
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