Callahan: The Patriots failed to help Mac Jones this offseason and paid for it on cutdown day

After Tuesday’s flurry of 53-man roster cuts, only one player will report to the Patriots’ quarterbacks room Wednesday morning.
Just two players will walk into the running backs meeting.
And close to a dozen, in fact 11, hulking, giant, sweaty offensive linemen will rumble into their own sitdown with new coach Adrian Klemm.
How did we get here? How did the Patriots get here?
Go back to March. Armed with more cap space than virtually the entire league, the Pats went bargain shopping at offensive tackle.
Riley Reiff signed a one-year, $5 million deal. Calvin Anderson inked a two-year contract with a maximum value of $7 million. Conor McDermott re-signed with the Pats before he could even hit the open market.
Now? Reiff is hurt because he was forced to play in the preseason finale at a new position. McDermott is out for the year, also hurt. And Anderson recently recovered from a serious illness that wiped out his entire training camp and once had him worried about his future in football.
Obviously, bad luck played a role in the Patriots’ lopsided roster more than 20% consists of offensive linemen. No player or front office ever asks for illness or injury. But bad luck did not force the Patriots to trade for two backup offensive tackles Sunday; players that ballooned the Patriots’ O-line room from nine members to 11 and consequently stole roster spots from other positions.
Front-office desperation did.
Lack of talent and depth did.
Poor roster-building and investment did.
If the Patriots had instead stocked their offensive line with starting-caliber talent this offseason, they could’ve devoted those two roster spots to other positions and better players. Perhaps kept Bailey Zappe or Malik Cunningham. Or, hell, Pierre Strong, instead preparing a Plan C and Plan D for their patchwork offensive line.
Because let’s say instead of Reiff, it was Orlando Brown Jr. who got hurt last Friday. Or Mike McGlinchey who got sick. Or Jawaan Taylor, or any top-shelf offensive tackle they passed over in free agency to instead dive into the discount bin.
Right now, there’s minimal concern about the position. Or how well the Patriots can may or may not protect Mac Jones in a prove-it year. The Patriots would simply wait for them to come back, knowing Brown or McGlinchey or Taylor would recover and perform at a high level. They start, and that’s that.
It’s a waiting game, not a front office scramble drill. But now?
Even if Anderson returns to playing shape for Week 1, he’s a career backup the Broncos let walk after one season as their swing tackle. Or it’s Reiff, a 34-year-old the Bengals and Bears said thanks, but no thanks, to in consecutive offseasons. Or maybe it’s Vederian Lowe or Tyrone Wheatley Jr., the aforementioned trade acquisitions who have 33 career offensive snaps between them.
Who knows? The Patriots don’t.
That’s what cutdown day came down to: insurance. The Pats paid a premium Tuesday because they declined any real coverage plan for their offensive line this spring. And that includes the draft.
Bill Belichick could have protected himself and Jones with a blue-chip tackle last April. Instead, he waited until Day 3 to fill that roster hole, and not with an actual tackle — but a career college guard.
Surprise! Fourth-round rookie Sidy Sow, who’s been repping at right tackle all summer, is part of the group that to led Belichick to believe and admit Monday the Patriots needed better depth. That’s why Lowe and Wheatley Jr. are here.
During that same draft, the Pats also dilly-dallied at wide receiver. They waited and waited before nabbing Demario Douglas and Kayshon Boutte in the sixth round. Douglas and Boutte made the initial 53-man roster after commendable performances in training camp. Douglas especially impressed, scorching most Patriots cornerbacks in team periods and 1-on-1s.
He was a made guy long before cuts were finalized, but the Patriots again were forced to stock up at the position because they don’t trust half the players there. Tyquan Thornton was demoted after two weeks in training camp, JuJu Smith-Schuster’s knee is rumored to be a concern and half of the other receivers are late-round rookies.
Of those two, Douglas is now the Pats’ projected No. 4 option. If DeVante Parker misses any time — and he will — the Patriots will suddenly be relying on a 5-foot-8 slot receiver who played his last two meaningful games against Toledo and New Mexico State. In a season that should chart the course for the franchise’s immediate future, the Patriots will need Douglas to deliver.
Ideally, that player would instead be Kendrick Bourne after he was knocked down the depth chart by a DeAndre Hopkins trade. Or Jakobi Meyers, a free agent they could have signed concurrently with Smith-Schuster. Or Allen Lazard or D.J. Chark or a first-round pick or Day 2 rookie.
But it’s not.
The wonkiness of NFL cutdown day deserves mention. Teams annually place banged-up players on injured reserve the day after final cuts to vacate roster spots for veterans they want to re-sign immediately after releasing them. It’s a handshake deal with those veterans, complete with a wink and a nod. You stay close, we’ll keep your seat warm.
The Patriots could place Reiff on IR Wednesday and add another running back. Or re-sign Zappe or Cunningham to the practice squad.
However it plays out, the positional breakdown of the Pats’ roster should balance out. The numbers will normalize. Offensive linemen can’t comprise more than 20% of this roster for long, right?
Right?!
But the talent is the talent. That’s the problem. The Patriots not only failed to match the offseason efforts of the Jets and Dolphins — both projected to finish ahead of them in the division — they failed to protect against the basic dangers of an NFL summer: injuries.
That failure cost them roster flexibility Tuesday, and the in-house solutions to their long-term offensive tackle problem aren’t encouraging. The first player to suffer from this will be Jones, upon whose shoulders the entire team and all of its hopes and dreams rest.
Let’s just hope he doesn’t slip walking into work all alone Wednesday morning.