The Patriots’ offensive struggles continued in Week 7 despite the easy win

The New England Patriots are still struggling to get their offense moving, but hopefully the addition of Mohamed Sanu might help.

Even though the New England Patriots shut out the New York Jets 33-0 on Monday Night Football, it’s hard not to notice the diminishing running attack that the team has to work with. What’s even harder to ignore is that the fault may not lie solely with the Pats’ running backs, either.

Sony Michel was the lead runner for the Patriots last week, finishing with 42 yards and three touchdowns on 19 carries, while averaging 2.2 yards per carry against the New York Jets. It might be easy to get blinded by the three touchdowns that Michel scored, and forget about the larger issues involving the offensive line and New England’s struggling ground game.

The next leading rusher was Julian Edelman, with 20 yards on the ground from three different end-around plays. The team has tried to reduce the wear and tear on Edelman, but yet they end up having to use him in the running game to help move the ball downfield. As the Pats progress forward through the season, decreasing the ‘dirty work’ for Edelman will be crucial to his durability heading into November, December, and then the playoffs.

Damien Harris finally saw some action against the Jets. The rookie third-round pick carried the ball four times for a total of 12 yards, although that wasn’t really an accurate representation of how he performed on the night. Harris looked really explosive and brought an energy into the game that the Pats could use more often. The duo of Michel and Harris could be just the spark this offense needs.

Both James White and Brandon Bolden were used in the passing game for the Pats. White led all receivers with seven catches that he turned into 59 yards. Bolden added another four catches for 39 yards. It’s not odd to see that these guys are used heavy in the receiving game, but the running backs probably shouldn’t be the leading receivers on the team.

More and more problems are beginning to surface for this offense. The run blocking from the offensive line hasn’t been very good, thus creating a lack of production on the ground. The lack of offensive weaponry has also been hurting the team… although the Pats just traded for wide receiver Mohamed Sanu to help address this specific issue. To top it all off, the number of injuries that has hit the team this season is through the roof (particularly on offense).

You can’t deny that the team hasn’t done anything to address these issues. As we approach the trade deadline, we’re going to hear a few more rumors regarding an additional acquisition for the Pats. Maybe an offensive lineman or even another tight end could be headed to New England, as both have been rumored positions that the Patriots are interested in trading for.

With that in mind, the Pats just shipped Michael Bennett to the Dallas Cowboys for a 2021 conditional seventh-round draft pick. We probably all thought that if the team was going to pull the trigger on dealing Bennett away, they would have gotten a player in return. That was not the case here, but a seventh-round pick has been found valuable by Bill Belichick in the past… so here’s hoping it’s used well when the time eventually comes.