Rookie watch: Patriots rookies fail to produce in loss to Vikings

The Patriots are 11 games into their 2022 season and their rookie class is starting to show signs of hitting the proverbial “rookie wall”. Ineffectiveness and mental mistakes are starting to pop up in chunks and it’s spreading throughout the entire class. Cole Strange has not been good in about a month, getting benched twice. Tyquan Thornton was not targeted against Minnesota after falling down the wide receiver depth chart last week against the Jets. Even Pierre Strong is now costing the Patriots games strictly from a special teams role.

The Patriots now sit at 6-5 on the season, just outside of the AFC playoff picture, with tough matchups coming up down the stretch. If they want a shot at making the playoffs for the second straight year, they are going to need their rookies to be better than what they’ve been recently. Here’s how they performed in Thursday’s loss.

Brenden Schooler, B+

Schooler was able to make two tackles on special teams Thursday night, giving him a team-high 11 special teams tackles to go along with his two fumble recoveries. Otherwise, it was a rough night for the Patriots special teams as they allowed a kick return for a touchdown and committed tough penalties. The kick return for a touchdown came on the opposite side of the field from Schooler, who actually made a hell of a play to race over and juuuuuuust missed getting a shoestring tackle.

Marcus Jones, B

A week after his heroics clinched the win over the Jets, Jones wasn’t quite able to do the same Thursday night. His lone kick return was a good one, going for 46 yards and setting up a Nick Folk field goal and he is now second in the NFL with a kick return average of 25.7 yards per return. Jones added a tackle on special teams, a nice hit on the opening kickoff, but struggled with his punt returns. Jones’ two punt returns went for a combined 11 yards and he committed a mental mistake of fielding the final punt inside his own five-yard line. Look at where he fields this punt. Just let this go in the end zone. Instead, he wasted clock and cost the team yardage.

Jack Jones, B-

Jones played 28 defensive snaps (41%) and was not targeted for the second consecutive week. He was able to add one tackle on the evening but otherwise did not contribute to the stat sheet.

Cole Strange, C+

At least Strange did not get benched this week! According to PFF, however, Strange did struggle in both pass protection and with his run blocking against the Vikings. The Patriots had one of their worst rushing efforts of the season as they ran for only 45 yards on 15 carries, with Strange grading out at 47.6. Mac Jones had a career-high in passing yards, but Strange’s pass protection graded out at a lowly 28.1, by far the lowest on the team.

Tyquan Thornton, D

Two weeks ago, Thornton was second to Jakobi Meyers in offensive snaps among Patriots wide receivers and had people calling for him to see the ball more. Thornton was targeted just twice last week against the Jets and fell down the depth chart fast after dropping a third-down pass early in the game. This week, Thornton was not targeted at all in his 20 offensive snaps and was fourth among the receiving groups in snaps. He has a lot of work to do as it seems the staff does not trust him in the passing game right now.

Pierre Strong, F

Tied game, Patriots set to take over as the Vikings line up to punt from their own 36-yard line. For some reason, Patriots special teams coordinator Cam Achord decides this is the time to go for the block, sending Strong off the edge. Strong doesn’t get there fast enough and compounds the error by running into the punter, drawing a five-yard penalty and the ire of Bill Belichick. Three plays later, the Vikings are in the endzone. Strong has not done anything to see the field after multiple injuries in the running game and not makes a crucial penalty on special teams, one way to get cut.

Incomplete: DaMarcus Mitchell, Bailey Zappe

Inactive: Sam Roberts, Kevin Harris