Tyquan Thornton was benched, but Patriots' problem at receiver goes deeper

BOSTON -- On a third-and-5 in the first quarter on Sunday, Mac Jones fired a pass in the direction of second-year receiver Tyquan Thornton. The Patriots had just fallen behind 3-0 and were looking to mount a response.

But Jones' pass sailed incomplete. The quarterback took a beat to assess the situation afterwards, shaking his head and looking up at the video board to try to see what happened. If that video board showed a replay, Jones would have seen a receiver running a timid out route, one that left the team with little to no chance of a completion.

It was discouraging, and it was the second time Jones failed to connect with Thornton on a gotta-have-it play. (The first was a misfire by Jones on a fourth-down play on the opening drive.) But in an offense with few receiving options, Jones had to go back to Thornton for another third down in the second quarter. The result was another incompletion.

To that point, the Patriots had run three offensive drives. They had a turnover on downs and two punts. All three drives ended with targets for Thornton. The final two drives each lasted exactly 53 seconds. And the Patriots fell behind 10-0 during that time.

Seemingly as a result of that ineffectiveness, Thornton didn't play for the rest of the game. He finished the game with just 12 offensive snaps after catching one pass for seven yards.

On Monday morning, when speaking to reporters, Bill Belichick confirmed that Thornton -- who was questionable to play with a foot injury -- was healthy and available for the final two and a half quarters on Sunday.

In other words, he was benched.

And, really, it's a benching with cause. The second-year wideout who was drafted 50th overall now has ... 15 receiving yards on the season. He's played in three games, and his receiving totals look like this: 7 yards, 2 yards, 6 yards. He's yet to catch more than a single pass in a game, and he's caught just three of the seven passes thrown his way.

Clearly, his issues at the NFL level extend beyond having Matt Patricia as his offensive coordinator as a rookie.

Yet while the benching makes sense, the Patriots' problems extend much deeper.

With DeVante Parker out (concussion), Jalen Reagor -- a guy who was dumped by the Eagles two years after they used a first-round pick to get him, and a guy who was dumped by the Vikings a year after they had acquired him via trade -- became the team's de facto No. 1 receiver.

The Patriots' No. 1 receiver on Sunday was targeted six times. He caught one pass for 11 yards. He could have had a 50-yard reception, but he bungled it.

Reagor's played in four games for the Patriots. He has two receptions for 22 yards on nine targets. That's after catching eight passes for 104 yards while being active in 17 games for Minnesota last year.

Reagor's not that guy.

(Tight end Mike Gesicki, whom Belichick referred to as the team's fifth receiver, had one target and zero catches in his 55 offensive snaps.) 

The top two receivers actually had productive days. One is a rookie sixth-round pick out of Liberty, the other is a free-agent signee who's largely disappointed to this point. But Demario Douglas caught five passes for 55 yards, and JuJu Smith Smith-Schuster caught the first six passes thrown his way, gaining 51 yards.

Yet, as is known, the game came to an end when Smith-Schuster failed to catch a pass that hit his hands.

Had Smith-Schuster secured that catch, the Patriots would have been in comfortable field-goal range for a tying kick, and they would have had a couple of shots to win the game, too. Instead, the game was over.

Rookie sixth-rounder Kayshon Boutte being inactive drew lots of attention before and after the game, and that's understandable. But that's the same Boutte who had zero receptions on four targets in his lone NFL game, one which saw him twice fail to get a second foot in bounds while trying to secure catches. Activating Boutte can't really hurt the Patriots, but the extent to which it can actually help might be minimal.

Really, Sunday was just a manifestation of an organizational devaluation of the receiver position. Jones is hardly without fault as a quarterback, but he's also clearly not being put in a position to succeed, based on the roster decisions at that premium position. And with Kendrick Bourne gone for the season, the issue is magnified.

Jones subtly expressed some frustration for his position when asked postgame about how other quarterbacks around the league have bigger throwing windows and better chances for explosive plays.

"I think, like I talked about, there is no excuses. It's hard to compare to other people, other teams. We have a standard here. At the end of the day, we need to meet that standard and execute as best we can for me as a quarterback and all that stuff," Jones said. "That's a great point, but at the same time, we're always going to focus on us and what we can do better and the things we need to improve, what I need to improve and all that stuff. But, yeah, that's a good question."

Jones crediting the reporter for making a great point and asking a good question is about as much as he can really say at this point. He's got eight games left in his third season to prove he belongs as an NFL starting quarterback, and this is the receiving group he's going to need to help him achieve that goal. Supporting those receivers and continuing to work with those receivers is the only choice Jones and the Patriots' offense has.

It's just become rather clear that even the best-case scenario with that group is not going to get the Patriots or Jones anywhere close to where they'd like to be.