The New England Patriots have put together a 5-3 start and sit 3-0 in the division heading into Week 9, but the first half of the season has come with plenty of baggage. Injuries have piled up across the offense, and the list has only grown with Hunter Henry now added to the mix.
That has left the Patriots short-handed in a big way. After injuries to A.J.
Brown, Romeo Doubs, Mack Hollins, Mike Onwenu, and Alijah Vera-Tucker, the offense has been stripped down enough to blunt the kind of production it showed earlier in the year. New England averaged 33.3 points per game in Weeks 4-6 while dealing with the battered skill-position group, but in its last two games, the team has scored 24 points each time and split those matchups 1-1.
Still, injuries are only part of the story. The bigger issue has been the giveaways.
When Jacob Rodriguez punched the ball out of Efton Chism’s hands in the first quarter on Sunday, it pushed New England to 15 turnovers on the season. That’s already close to the 16 turnovers the Patriots had across their entire 14-3 2025 season.
Chism’s fumble marks 15th Patriots turnover on the season
- Karen Guregian (@kguregian) November 1, 2026
The numbers around the ball security problem are ugly. With nine games left, the Patriots own the second-worst turnover margin in football at minus-0.9 per game, which means they’re giving the ball away almost once more per game than their opponents. Somehow, they’ve still managed to stay 5-3.
That puts them in strange company. The teams with the worst and third-worst turnover margins are the 0-7 Colts and the 2-6 Chargers.
New England also ranks fourth in the league in total turnovers, with the Chargers first and the Colts third. The Atlanta Falcons sit second after a four-turnover game in monsoon conditions against the Buccaneers distorted their numbers a bit.
Even with those issues, the Patriots have still stacked up as many wins as the Chargers, Colts, and Falcons combined. But the turnover problem is still the clearest flaw in the profile.
Over the last few weeks, though, New England has at least started to clean things up. With starters working back into the lineup and A.J.
Brown playing better, the Patriots have also done a better job protecting the football. That has helped in the short term, and it needs to keep happening if they want to stay on track in the second half of the season and keep their Super Bowl hopes alive.
In Other News...
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Patriots Suddenly Face A Running Back Decision They Didn't Expect
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With the trade deadline approaching, the Patriots are at least being mentioned in the kind of running back speculation that usually surfaces only when a team feels pressed to act. The names being floated around the league are the sort that would reshape a backfield in a hurry, but for now it is still just that, speculation, as New England waits for more clarity on Henderson and weighs whether outside help becomes necessary. [Read more 🡒]