The Patriots made an unusual move mid-way through their second offensive drive in Sunday’s win over the Bengals.
Head coach Jerod Mayo pulled starting left tackle Chukwuma Okorafor for Vederian Lowe mid-series. Typically, an offensive line swap will take place at the start of a new drive or quarter.
Okorafor had allowed three pressures to Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson in five matchups, per Next Gen Stats, and it was time to make a swift change.
“Look, I think Chuks has all the skill set — let’s start the quote with this: I think he has the entire skill set to be a good tackle in this league,” Mayo said. “I would say, during the game, there were some challenges. He had some challenges and some struggles over there. Lowe came in and did a great job for us. Once again, it’s about competing each and every week. We’ll see how this week of preparation goes, and he may in there. I’m not sure. We’ll just have to see how the week goes.”
Lowe allowed four pressures in 16 matchups with Hendrickson.
Okorafor was a starter at either left or right tackle, when healthy, for the entire summer. The Patriots initially signed him with the idea that he would be a backup with the potential to start at left tackle in a pinch. Based on Sunday’s game, it seems Lowe is the better option moving forward. There’s no reason to move Mike Onwenu off of right tackle and back to right guard, either, with how well rookie Layden Robinson is playing.
Despite the early reshuffling of the offensive line, Mayo believes the concerns on the unit are overblown, and he praised offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, offensive line coach Scott Peters, assistant offensive line coach Robert Kugler and offensive coaching assistant Michael McCarthy for their work with the line.
“I’ve told you guys the entire time, and I’ve told the media. We’ve overblown the deficiencies that we have on the offensive line. Every single preseason game, turn on the tape. This is what I’ll say: turn on the tape. Every single preseason game, I would say we dominated the line of scrimmage offensively and defensively. Now, there was the one practice against Philly where everyone kind of blew that out of proportion, but I have nothing but total faith in Scott Peters, AVP, Kugler, Mike, all of those guys to get those guys ready to go, and we don’t hear it. We don’t hear it.”
That practice against the Eagles was the only time the Patriots went against starters this summer. They played all backups in the preseason.