Injuries at wide receiver, O-line and linebacker could make life even more difficult for Patriots this week

BOSTON -- Things in Patriots Land are not going well. And they may get worse.

Somewhat lost in the dreadful misery of Sunday's butt-whooping at Gillette Stadium was the fact that the Patriots suffered some injuries that figure to make life even tougher moving forward.

Notably, the team lost two wide receivers -- Demario Douglas and JuJu Smith-Schuster -- to head injuries. Douglas suffered his while absorbing an illegal blow to the head in the first quarter, and though he remained in the game, he left the game one drive later. Smith-Schuster likewise absorbed a shot to the head after making a catch, with his coming on a short crossing pattern in the third quarter. Officials stopped the game for Smith-Schuster, who was clearly dazed, and he was quickly ruled out with a head injury.

In the old days, players would often play the next week after suffering a concussion. These days, not so much, as players need to progress through a five-step process in order to be cleared to return to play. Phase 1 is "symptom limited activity," Phase 2 is aerobic exercise, Phase 3 if football-specific exercise, Phase 4 is club-based non-contact training drills, and Phase 5 is full football activity/clearance. Clearing all five stages takes longer than a week, in most cases. (Raiders quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo entered concussion protocol after the Raiders' Week 3 win, and he wasn't cleared until the following Friday -- 12 days after taking the hit that caused the injury.)

So in the case of both Smith-Schuster and Douglas, expect both players to be out on Sunday in Las Vegas. The Patriots will likely have to turn to rookie Kayshon Boutte, practice squadder Jalen Reagor, or Tyquan Thornton (who's eligible to come off IR) to fill out the receiver depth chart on Sunday.

The absences of both Douglas and Smith-Schuster led to Ty Montgomery taking 15 snaps on offense. He bobbled a pass that led to a Saints interception.

Elsewhere on offense, starting right guard Mike Onwenu left Sunday's game with an ankle injury after taking just 22 snaps. The Patriots already have one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL and can ill afford to lose one of their reliable linemen. Onwenu underwent offseason surgery to repair his ankle and missed most of the summer while recovering from that procedure, and he also did not play in Week 1. He played 100 percent of the team's offensive snaps in Weeks 3 and 4 before suffering the injury on Sunday.

And on defense, signal-caller Ja'Whaun Bentley dealt with a shoulder injury on Sunday that limited him to 78 percent of the team's defensive snaps. Bentley had played every defensive snap in Weeks 1-3 and 90 percent of the snaps in the Week 4 blowout loss in Dallas, so his absence would be significant if he's unable to play this weekend in Las Vegas.

That's quite a bit to deal with, particularly for a team that listed 10 players as questionable on its injury report for last week's game. The injury report this week will certainly warrant close monitoring, beginning on Wednesday.

Given their talent level and inefficiency across the boards, the Patriots have shown that winning any game this year will be difficult. Doing so with all of these injuries will only add to that challenge.