Patriots’ 2022 offensive optimism is being weighed down by defense

At cornerback, the Patriots also regressed. First, they allowed their best — and one of the league’s best — J. C. Jackson to walk in free agency. The likely third-round compensation pick is little compensation for losing such a talented player. It was an ill-advised move, no matter what reasons the Patriots’ personnel operation can try to drum up to justify not paying a player who’s worth every cent of the $82.5M deal he got from the Los Angeles Chargers.

At least the team tried to address that need in the draft, and there were lots of options available.

They selected Marcus Jones, a versatile, yet woefully, short (at 5-8 tall) cornerback. Jones was one of their picks who actually was drafted where he should have been in the third round. He was even considered a possible second-rounder. Another negative there, though, is that Jones had surgery on both of his shoulders in the offseason and was not ready to play in rookie camp. He’s an injury risk, whether the team wants to admit it or not.

They also selected another corner, Jack Jones, a reach in the fourth round. Jones, at about 171 pounds, is also paper-thin and has off-field red flags. How these corners will cover taller and bigger wide receivers is a major question mark. No one of real consequence was added anywhere else, except Patriots Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler, who didn’t play in 2021 at all. All this adds up to a grade of C for the defensive backfield, with safeties Devon McCourty, Justin Bethel, and Kyle Dugger helping to raise the grade considerably.

So there’s a quick overview of the lay of the land on defense. The Patriots’ offense should be OK, barring any major injuries on the offensive line, especially if Trent Brown is playing left tackle. Expect Mac Jones to be better and much quicker on his feet in 2022, and the offense to be pretty decent with the new weapons they added to assist him.

Yet the defense is a major worry, and confounding offseason personnel non-moves make it a total question mark. It says here they will be worse than the unit that fell apart late in 2021, and that’s not a great optic. The grade is C- overall. How do you think the Patriots’ defense looks for 2021? We’d like to hear your thoughts.

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