The Patriots’ injury pileup has already reached the point where another roster move felt inevitable. Ahead of Thursday night’s primetime meeting with the Bears, New England placed left guard Alijah Vera-Tucker on injured reserve and brought up backups from the practice squad to fill the gap.
That alone would have been enough to make this a difficult week along the offensive line. But with several starters already going down over the first six weeks, the conversation around New England has widened fast. If the Patriots want to make a bigger move, the Colts are the team to watch.
The name in play is Quenton Nelson.
Rumors around Nelson’s future have picked up after Indianapolis fired General Manager Chris Ballard earlier this week, and some around the league believe a sell-off could follow. Nelson is in the final year of his current contract, which only adds to the possibility that the Colts could listen if a team comes with the right offer.
That right offer would not be small. Current chatter says Indianapolis would want at least a second-round pick for the 8-time Pro Bowler, and that kind of price would force the Patriots to think hard about what they want to do next.
It’s a steep ask for any offensive lineman, let alone one who is already 30 and would also be looking for a new deal. If New England made that move, it would signal the team is not fully sold on Vera-Tucker as a long-term answer, even though he’s mostly played left guard.
There is also the Mike Onwenu factor. He’s on injured reserve too, and he is set to become a free agent in 2027. A trade for Nelson could mean the Patriots would see Nelson as the long-term left guard, slide Vera-Tucker to right guard - a spot he played for the Jets in 2024 - and eventually move on from their former draft pick.
That’s where the decision gets uncomfortable for the Vrabel regime. Onwenu was drafted before Mike Vrabel arrived, so he doesn’t carry the same “Vrabel’s guy” label that can matter in these situations. Vera-Tucker, on the other hand, was signed this past offseason, which makes him a different kind of investment.
Still, it would be hard to walk away from Onwenu lightly. He had been as steady as they come before breaking his ankle in Week 2, missing only two games in his career before that injury.
He’s also been a consistently solid presence, and often the best lineman on the team. Letting that sort of player go for nothing would sting.
Then again, Nelson is Nelson. An 8-time Pro Bowler doesn’t come cheap, and the Colts would be justified in asking for a premium return if they decide to move him.
For the Patriots, it all comes down to the trade cost, the new contract Nelson would want, and what they believe about Onwenu’s future. There’s also the timing: do they act now, or wait and see whether Vera-Tucker can return as early as Week 11?
In Other News...
Patriots Defensive Problems Just Made One Absence Feel Much Bigger
Carlton Davis IIIs absence has been looming over the Patriots secondary for a few weeks now, and it felt even larger in Sundays Week 7 loss to the Bears. Davis missed his third straight game with the neck injury, leaving New England to lean on a defense that was already trying to adjust on the fly after changing its approach with less blitzing and more zone coverage.
Marcus Jones has been asked to do more on the outside than he usually does, and the results have not been clean. The Patriots have seen that adjustment show up in his coverage grades and in missed tackles, and Chicago made quick use of the softer looks early in the game. With Davis still unavailable, the question around this defense is no longer just about one missing starter, but how long the Patriots can keep patching together the back end without it costing them again. [Read more 🡒]
Patriots Trade Debate Just Got Real As Run Game Keeps Failing
The Patriots backfield has become a real issue, and the latest week only sharpened the concern. New Englands run game has been close to nonexistent, leaving the offense searching for answers while TreVeyon Henderson has not yet settled into the kind of role the team hoped for when it put its backfield plan in place.
Against that backdrop, the discussion around a possible trade has started to feel more serious than speculative. A move of that kind would not be easy to pull off, but the Patriots are running out of patience with an offense that is struggling to find traction on the ground, and any outside help would need to be a player who can change the conversation immediately. [Read more 🡒]
Patriots Have An Expensive Problem Up Front After Frustrating Loss
The Patriots spent big to fortify the middle of their defensive front, so nights like the one against the Bears are going to draw a lot of attention. Milton Williams and Christian Barmore both have the kind of talent that can tilt a game, and there have been plenty of encouraging moments around each of them this season, but Chicago found a way to keep New England from turning that interior pressure into a real edge.
What made the loss sting was how ordinary the run defense looked when the Patriots needed it most. The Bears were able to lean on the ground game, control the tempo and leave New England chasing a 30-24 defeat, with the pricey interior duo failing to make the sort of consistent impact the team was counting on up front. [Read more 🡒]