The Patriots have a wide receiver problem, and Romeo Doubs’ best game yet didn’t come close to fixing it.
That’s the uncomfortable truth sitting in front of New England as it heads into a pivotal two-game road stretch against Jacksonville and Buffalo. A.J.
Brown, the big offseason centerpiece, is dealing with an ankle injury and will miss at least the next three games. The two most reliable pass-catchers from Drake Maye’s Super Bowl run last year, Stefon Diggs and Kayshon Boutte, are gone because of the team’s own decisions.
And right now, the offense is leaning on Hunter Henry and Mack Hollins, with DeMario Douglas still producing little and Kyle Williams and Efton Chism not trusted enough to take on bigger roles.
That leaves Doubs, the Patriots’ $68 million offseason investment, as the player most expected to stabilize things. So far, that hasn’t happened.
His connection with Maye is still very much a work in progress, and Doubs himself acknowledged he wasn’t fully dialed in during a rough Week 1 showing at Seattle. That game ended with no catches and a costly drop on a potential big play in the fourth quarter.
He bounced back in Week 2 against the Pittsburgh Steelers with three catches for 96 yards, but the stat line doesn’t tell the whole story. He wasn’t functioning as the steady safety valve Diggs had been for Maye throughout last season. Outside of a couple of busted coverages that opened things up deep, Doubs hasn’t had much of an effect on the offense, and that’s a problem with tougher opponents coming fast.
The usage tells part of the story. When the Patriots brought Doubs in back in March, the expectation was that he would help replace Diggs with more slot work.
That hasn’t happened through two games. According to Pro Football Focus, Doubs has lined up in the slot on just eight of his 77 offensive snaps.
Douglas and Henry have handled most of the slot snaps, and Douglas is way out in front with an 87.3% usage rate.
Against the Steelers, Doubs was mostly outside, which made sense with Brown on injured reserve. But New England still isn’t deploying him like a flexible weapon who can move around and stress defenses. He can play anywhere at receiver, yet he’s been out wide on 85.5% of his snaps and still hasn’t looked like the true No. 1 option the Patriots need him to be.
On Sunday, Doubs caught a short 4-yard pass from Maye and then fumbled it out of bounds. He also hauled in a 29-yard scramble-drill completion after Maye found him wide open along the sideline. His biggest play came in the fourth quarter, when Maye rolled to his right and hit him behind the defense for 63 yards after the Steelers blew the coverage.
It was enough to show up in the box score and enough to help New England win. But the three plays most worth remembering from Doubs so far are two deep catches with nobody near him and one glaring drop. Maye still isn’t going to him on third down or in the moments that decide games.
That’s the real issue. Maye doesn’t seem to have a clear answer for who to trust when the pressure rises, and that’s the biggest red flag in this offense right now.
For Mike Vrabel and the Patriots, it’s a rough look. They moved on from Diggs and shifted his 2026 salary to the younger Doubs, expecting a different kind of payoff. So far, they haven’t gotten it.
If that doesn’t change soon, New England’s passing game could be stuck in neutral until Brown gets healthy.
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