The Patriots traded for A.J. Brown on June 1 to fix the biggest problem on their roster. One game into the season, that problem is back.
Brown suffered a high ankle sprain in New England’s opener against Seattle and is headed to injured reserve, which means a minimum of four games on the shelf. His ankle bent awkwardly after getting trapped between the ground and Seahawks cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett early in the third quarter. He did not return.
The math on the absence is ugly. Brown will miss the Sept. 20 home opener against Pittsburgh, the Sept. 27 road trip to Jacksonville and the Oct. 4 game in Buffalo. High ankle sprains are also the injury most likely to linger past the minimum timeline, especially for a receiver whose game is built on physically winning contested catches and breaking tackles after them.
What makes this sting is how much New England gave up to solve exactly this. Drake Maye spent his first two seasons throwing to a receiver group nobody feared. Acquiring Brown from Philadelphia was the front office admitting that no amount of quarterback development fixes a roster without a true No. 1 target. Then the No. 1 target lasted two and a half quarters.
You could see the value even in the short sample. Brown caught three passes for 26 yards and drew a 34-yard defensive pass interference penalty that set up rookie tight end Eli Raridon’s touchdown. That penalty is the tell. Brown generates production without even catching the ball, because defenses have to commit resources to him that they never had to commit to anyone on New England’s 2025 depth chart.
Now look at what happened to Maye once Brown went down. Maye finished 23-for-33 for 178 passing yards with a touchdown and three interceptions, plus 47 yards rushing. On throws traveling 20-plus yards, he was 0-for-4 with three interceptions. Every single one of his picks came on a deep attempt.
That is the part Patriots fans should actually worry about. Maye was forcing the ball downfield into coverage, and the one player on the roster capable of winning those throws was in the locker room. Over the next month, the same pressure is going to exist with an even thinner receiver room. Romeo Doubs did not help his case in the opener either.
So the Patriots face a choice, and the answer is obvious. New England has to get conservative. Lean on Maye’s legs, which produced 47 efficient yards against a Seattle defense that just won a Super Bowl. Feed Raridon and the tight ends in the intermediate middle. Run the ball and let a defense that held Seattle to 13 points keep the team in games. Trying to win shootouts without Brown is how a 10-win season becomes a 7-win season.
The longer-term view is still fine. Brown is expected back in October, the injury is a sprain rather than a fracture or a tear, and the Patriots have a schedule that gets more forgiving. Maye’s deep-ball problems in Week 1 look a lot more like bad decisions under duress than a broken skill.
But June 1 was supposed to be the day the Patriots stopped making excuses for their passing offense. Instead they are making them again in Week 2, and they will keep making them until Brown gets off IR.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
