The Patriots’ injury situation keeps getting messier, but the Mack Hollins move may have revealed something bigger.
With Reggie Gilliam and Hollins both landing on injured reserve last week, New England has now sent 19 players to IR since training camp opened this past summer. That number could climb to 20 if Will Campbell ends up on IR after leaving Sunday’s game against the Raiders with the same knee issue he had as a rookie last year. TreVeyon Henderson also exited that matchup.
At the same time, Week 6 is the first chance A.J. Brown has to return from his ankle sprain after sitting out the required four games.
That has set off plenty of speculation about whether the Patriots will activate him right away, especially with the Jets coming up next week. Other reports have suggested the team could wait at least another week, which would be the safer play.
Still, there’s another read on the Hollins decision: New England may have placed him on IR because it already knows Brown is coming back soon.
That theory makes some sense. The Patriots’ receiver room was already stretched thin before Hollins got hurt, with Brown on IR and Kayshon Boutte traded before the season opener. In that kind of setup, it would be hard to justify putting Hollins on IR for at least four games unless the team had a good reason to expect Brown back in short order.
Hollins may be dealing with a more serious injury than initially thought, which would explain why the Patriots chose to free up the roster spot. But if Brown is close, then the move becomes even easier to understand. New England would need space to activate him, and keeping the door open for Brown would fit with the idea that the front office wants to give Drake Maye enough help around him to succeed.
Even with the injuries piling up, the offense held up Sunday against the Raiders. The Patriots had only Romeo Doubs, DeMario Douglas, Efton Chism, and Kyle Williams active at receiver, yet the group still helped the team top 500 yards against a defense that came in ranked eighth against the pass.
That was a better outcome than most would have expected, but it also showed how thin the margin has been without Hollins. He had become one of Maye’s trusted options while Brown was sidelined, and he had also been steadier than some of the other choices, especially Doubs, who had early-season issues with drops and turnovers.
So for now, the signs point toward Brown possibly returning this week against the Jets. Of course, the Patriots could always be holding him back a bit longer and making the Hollins decision look like something more than it is. But given how they tend to operate, it’s not hard to believe there’s more going on behind the curtain.
In Other News...
Chargers Tight End Finally Delivered A Breakthrough Years In The Making
Hayden Rucci finally got the kind of moment that can make the nomadic side of a young NFL career feel worth it, catching his first touchdown in Week 5 of the 2026 season for the Chargers. The tight end has been around the league enough already to know how fleeting roster spots can be, and his path has been shaped by a long football family tree as a third-generation pro, with roots that reach back through his father and grandfather.
For New England readers, the surname will ring a bell: his father, Todd Rucci, once lined up at guard for the Patriots in the 1990s, giving this latest milestone a faint but familiar local thread. Hayden Rucci landed in Los Angeles on September 22, 2026, after bouncing through several NFL stops, and he has now carved out a role with six appearances and two starts, the kind of foothold every fringe player spends years chasing while waiting for one clean break. [Read more 🡒]
Raiders Loss In New England Got Uglier Than The Score
The Patriots had enough going on Sunday to fill more than one storyline, and the on-field result still ended up being the cleanest part of the afternoon. New England rolled past the Raiders 45-17, a win that pushed the team back above .500 for the first time in 2026 while Drake Maye kept the offense moving through a busy day that also included the celebration of the franchise's first Super Bowl team and Adam Vinatieri's Hall of Fame ring ceremony.
Even with the scoreboard tilting heavily in New England's favor, the game carried a more uneasy edge by the time it was over. Rhamondre Stevenson, Will Campbell and TreVeyon Henderson all left with injuries, and Henderson was later ruled out, leaving the Patriots to sort through the cost of a victory that was supposed to be about honoring the past but ended up adding another layer of concern for the present. [Read more 🡒]
Drake Maye Just Gave Patriots Fans A Reason To Believe
Drake Maye delivered the kind of performance that can change the mood around a building in a hurry, and it came in a lopsided 45-17 win over the Raiders that pushed the Patriots to 3-2. The rookie quarterback was efficient and aggressive, completing 26 of 34 passes while steering New England through one of its most complete offensive outings of the season.
For a team that has been searching for steady footing, the encouraging part was not just the scoreboard but how cleanly Maye managed the game against Las Vegas. New England heads into its next matchup with the Jets carrying a little more confidence, and for the first time in a while, there is a real sense that the offense may have found something worth building on. [Read more 🡒]