Mike Onwenu injury: Patriots place right guard on injured reserve, out at least four games
New England lost its longest-tenured player to an ankle injury in Week 2. ESPN reported X-rays showed a break; Mike Vrabel would not say whether the season is over.
Onwenu to injured reserve, out at least four games
The bottom line: New England made the move Tuesday and signed punter Mitch Wishnowsky to fill the roster spot, the Associated Press reported. The earliest Onwenu can return is Week 7 against Chicago, per Boston.com.
The details:
- Onwenu was hurt late in the first quarter of Sunday’s 20-3 win over Pittsburgh, when T.J. Watt rolled up on his right ankle while assisting on a sack of Drake Maye. AP described the replay as showing “a gruesome twisting of the ankle.” Onwenu got up on his own but hopped to a waiting cart.
- Wishnowsky had been promoted from the practice squad in each of the past two weeks and is the primary punter with Bryce Baringer on injured reserve.
- The absence covers at least two divisional games: New England is at Jacksonville on Sunday, travels to Buffalo on Oct. 4 and hosts the Jets on Oct. 18, Boston.com noted.
- Onwenu is the second New England starter lost to injured reserve in two weeks. Receiver A.J. Brown went on IR after a high ankle sprain in the season opener, Boston.com noted.
- Dre’Mont Jones left the same game with a shoulder injury and was ruled out early in the third quarter, ESPN’s Mike Reiss reported. Tight end Eli Raridon (thigh) also left early. Boston.com reported Craig Woodson was spotted in a sling in the locker room afterward.
Nobody will say it is season-ending, and the reports do not agree
The bottom line: Reiss reported a broken ankle; Vrabel would not go near the word.
- “Initial X-rays revealed that New England Patriots starting right guard Mike Onwenu has a broken right ankle, a source said,” Reiss reported Sunday.
- Jordan Schultz reported the injury was feared to be season-ending. The Athletic’s Chad Graff noted similar speculation and wrote that Vrabel “was unwilling to go that far.”
- Vrabel, on Monday: “He hurt his ankle. I think you guys could see that on TV.” Asked directly whether Onwenu was done for the year, he said: “I don’t think he’ll be available here in the short term. So, I wouldn’t anticipate him being out there here in the next few weeks. If that changes and it ends up being longer than that, then we will let you guys know.”
- The injured reserve designation itself sets only a floor, not a ceiling: four games out, with no announced return date.
Who plays right guard now
The bottom line: Greg Van Roten replaced Onwenu in the game and played 40 snaps, and Vrabel’s review of it was mixed.
- Van Roten, 36, signed in mid-August after the Patriots struggled with interior line depth in training camp, Graff reported. He started 17 games in each of the past three seasons with the Raiders and Giants. Graff wrote that the August signing “now looks especially prudent, though there’s no guarantee” he delivers at a high level.
- Vrabel on that performance: “I think he had a few plays that he’d like to have back, so would everybody. But I thought he had some positive plays. … I think that he stepped in there, was ready to go. Then we’ll have to kind of figure out who’s the next guy.”
- Ben Brown, who backs up Jared Wilson at center, is the other interior option on the game-day roster. Asked whether rookie Caleb Lomu might move inside from tackle, Vrabel said it was possible: “Caleb would be one of the guys that could possibly do that. But again, we just have to make sure that we have the best five available, and then the other three guys that are versatile on game day.”
The line he leaves behind
The bottom line: Onwenu and Morgan Moses were the settled half of this line. The other half is two players in their second seasons.
- “The team is relying on veteran presence from right tackle Morgan Moses and right guard Mike Onwenu,” Patriots Wire wrote in July, in the same preview that described left tackle Will Campbell and center Jared Wilson as “looking to improve after difficult rookie seasons.”
- Campbell gave up five sacks last season, 64th among 89 tackles, and allowed 26 pressures, 43rd, per Pro Football Focus. He suffered an MCL sprain against Cincinnati in November.
- Patriots.com’s roster analysis put the line’s roster questions “about depth rather than open competitions for starting jobs in camp,” noting two rookies and Walter Rouse, who has no career starts, behind Campbell and Moses.
- Graff called Onwenu “arguably their best offensive lineman.”
The contract year this interrupts
The bottom line: Onwenu is in the final year of his deal and was due to reach free agency in March.
- He reworked the contract in the offseason, lowering his cap hit by $7.5 million in exchange for $10 million more in guarantees, Graff reported.
- Graff wrote that the injury “likely dampens his market and could force him to sign a one-year deal somewhere rather than the multiyear option he was likely hoping for,” and that if Onwenu cannot return this season his Patriots career may be over.
- Durability had been the constant. Sunday was his 100th regular-season game and 92nd start, and he has played 100 of the team’s last 102 games, adapting across different schemes and coaching staffs. He was a sixth-round pick out of Michigan in 2020 and is the longest-tenured player on the roster.
See the updated Patriots depth chart for how the interior line is stacked without him.
Our take
This one just stinks.
The right side was the part of this line you never had to think about. Moses and Onwenu were the veterans the team leaned on, which is another way of saying they were the reason the other half could still be a work in progress. Campbell gave up five sacks as a rookie and finished 64th of 89 tackles. Wilson is a second-year center. That was workable while the right side took care of itself.
It doesn’t now. Van Roten is a real NFL starter with 17 games in each of the last three years, and Vrabel saw “some positive plays.” He’s also 36, and his own coach volunteered that there were snaps he’d want back. Ben Brown is depth, not an upgrade. Fine as a bridge for four games. Different proposition if the ankle is what Reiss reported it is.
The timing is cruel in a way that goes past football. Onwenu took less cap money for more guarantees, bet on himself in a contract year, and broke an ankle in Week 2 of it.
Four games is the minimum amount of time he’ll be out. If it turns into the season, New England spends the year with the left side still developing and the right side opened up, with Brown on injured reserve alongside him. Jacksonville and Buffalo are next.