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Losing Dion Lewis and not having a replacement hurt this offense big time.
James White was a huge disappointment yesterday and was targeted something like 16 times.
They didn't replace the important pieces they lost to injury and thought they could get by.
The lack of replacing the key injuries cost this team the win yesterday and a few others during the season not JM.
We did have a replacement for Lewis. It was Blount. Then he got hurt too.
Out of curiosity, who exactly would you have filled those key injuries with? Was there a starting-level RB out there that we didn't talk to? A starting LT? What about an all-pro TE or #1 WR?
Who exactly can you fill these voids with that was readily available?
They started 13 different starting OL combinations, the most in 22 years. They pieced together 37 different OL combinations throughout the season, with 0 OL starters from 2014 playing the entire season, and 2 starters from 2014 on the IR. At times their entire interior OL was rookies, including an undrafted free agent. At times they were flanked by former PSer Fleming.
The Patriots were 4th in most players on injured reserve. They were 10th in terms of most amount of cap space spent on injured reserve players, 3rd-highest among playoff teams and the only team in the top 10 to make it to the CG.
You can fill some of those spots, but when you're a top-5 team in terms of IR players, you're going to struggle with depth. The surprise isn't that it happened, but rather how competitive we were despite it all.