New England Patriots' Game Day Roster: Who's In and Who's Out for Week 1 vs. Bengals?

The New England Patriots have traveled to Cincinnati for the start of their 2024 regular season, and they are in relatively good shape. With the exception of one starter and the players on various injury lists, the team has all hands on deck for its Week 1 bout with the Bengals. The Patriots' game day roster for Sunday's contest therefore looks as follows:

Quarterback Depth Chart

Jacoby Brissett (7)
Drake Maye (10)

Running Back Depth Chart

Rhamondre Stevenson (38)
Antonio Gibson (4)
JaMycal Hasty (39)

Wide Receiver Depth Chart

DeMario Douglas (3)
Ja’Lynn Polk (1)
K.J. Osborn (2)
Tyquan Thornton (11)
Kayshon Boutte (9)

Tight End Depth Chart

Hunter Henry (85)
Austin Hooper (81)
Jaheim Bell (88)

Offensive Line Depth Chart

Chukwuma Okorafor (77 | LT)
Michael Onwenu (71 | RT)
Vederian Lowe (59)
Caedan Wallace (70)
Nick Leverett (51 | LG)
David Andrews (60 | C)
Layden Robinson (63 | RG)
Michael Jordan (74 | PS elevation)

Defensive Line Depth Chart

Davon Godchaux (92)
Keion White (99)
Deatrich Wise Jr. (91)
Daniel Ekuale (95)
Jeremiah Pharms Jr. (98)
Trysten Hill (97 | PS elevation)

Edge Rusher Depth Chart

Anfernee Jennings (33)
Joshua Uche (55)
Oshane Ximines (93)

Linebacker Depth Chart

Ja’Whaun Bentley (8)
Jahlani Tavai (48)
Raekwon McMillan (50)
Christian Elliss (53)

Cornerback Depth Chart

Christian Gonzalez (0)
Jonathan Jones (31)
Marcus Jones (25 | PR)
Marco Wilson (22)
Alex Austin (28)
Marcellas Dial Jr. (27)

Safety Depth Chart

Kyle Dugger (23)
Jabrill Peppers (5)
Jaylinn Hawkins (21)
Brenden Schooler (41)
Dell Pettus (24)

Special Teams Depth Chart

Joey Slye (13 | K)
Bryce Baringer (17 | P | H)
Joe Cardona (49 | LS)

Except starting left guard Sidy Sow, all players listed on the injury report entering Sunday were made active for the game: running back Antonio Gibson (hip), potential starting left tackle Vederian Lowe (abdomen), outside linebacker Joshua Uche (foot) and safety Jabrill Peppers (hip) have all been given the green light. They are not the only players worth mentioning, though.

Roster Bonuses and UDFA Success

There is, for example, Raekwon McMillan, who already had a lucrative day even before taking the field. The backup linebacker and projected special teamer earned a $115,000 roster bonus by being on the 53-man squad for Week 1 plus another $15,000 for being active. Also worth pointing out is the presence of Dell Pettus on the active squad. Pettus has made the game day roster despite joining the league as an undrafted free agent earlier this year; before last year's season opener, New England had a 19-year streak of at least one UDFA being on the game day squad Week 1. Maybe Pettus' presence can serve as a starting point for another such streak.

Inactives for Week 1

The Patriots' list of inactives includes no real surprises:

WR Javon Baker
LB Curtis Jacobs
OT Demontrey Jacobs
DT Eric Johnson
QB Joe Milton (emergency QB)
G Sidy Sow
OL Zachary Thomas

Practice Squad Elevations

The Patriots also decided to elevate two members of their practice squad to the game day roster. Both Michael Jordan and Trysten Hill will automatically revert back on Monday.

The Patriots' Week 1 Matchup

The Patriots' Week 1 game against the Bengals will be kicked off at 1 p.m. ET at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati. It's a new era for the New England Patriots. For the first time since 1999, somebody other than Bill Belichick will be patrolling the team's sidelines as Jerod Mayo makes his head coaching debut against the Cincinnati Bengals. That is about as tough of a matchup as he can get to start, having to go on the road against a potential Super Bowl contender, and he is opening as more than a touchdown underdog. They are the biggest underdogs on the Week 1 schedule. The Patriots are just 5-14-1 against the spread in their past 20 games.

Even though the Patriots used the No. 3 pick in the draft on quarterback Drake Maye, they are opening the season with Jacoby Brissett as their starter in the hopes he can provide some veteran leadership to an offense lacking in playmakers and depth. How long that experiment lasts, however, remains to be seen.

Points are going to be a struggle all season for the Patriots, and they will have to turn every game into a low-scoring, defensive slugfest to scratch out the wins they do get. The good news: Their defense might be capable of doing that on occasion, and they might also be catching the Bengals at the right time. Even though quarterback Joe Burrow is back after missing the second half of last season due to a wrist injury, he has had a tendency to start slow the past two seasons, and the availability of superstar wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase is still unknown as he has barely practiced in the preseason due to a contract dispute. On Saturday, the team updated Chase's questionable status with an illness concern as well.

If Chase does not play and Burrow is still limited in any way from the wrist injury, that could help narrow what would otherwise be a decisive talent gap on paper between the two teams.

The Bengals' Offensive Adaptability

Each week this season, as the Patriots work their way through their first year under Jerod Mayo and Eliot Wolf, we'll take a look at their latest opponent and see if there's an aspect of their football operation worth imitating as the new regime in New England works to mold its team into a contender. This week we're looking at the Bengals, whose prolific passing attack with Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins is likely the envy of every team in the NFL but one. (The Chiefs have done OK for themselves.)

When it comes to what the Patriots should try to imitate, the obvious answer would be to surround Drake Maye with the types of high-end pass-catchers Burrow has been able to work with the last several seasons. Higgins was drafted in the second round in the same year as Burrow (2020). Chase, who played with Burrow at LSU, was taken at the top of the first round the very next year. Not surprisingly, their passing game took off.

The Patriots have already ticked one of those boxes by taking a rookie wideout in the second round to pair with their rookie quarterback. Ja’Lynn Polk is a different type of receiver than Higgins. He's not the prototypical "X" who will live along the sideline and make his money on jump balls. But Polk can make contested catches himself, and he has the route-running chops and toughness that Wolf and Mayo felt made him worthy of the No. 37 overall choice. He'll be part of what's expected to be a four-wideout rotation Sunday in Cincinnati, along with DeMario Douglas, K.J. Osborn and Tyquan Thornton.

So... take another wideout at the top of the draft in 2025 and mission accomplished, right? That would be the easy answer. And it's a path the Patriots may still prefer depending on where they end up in the draft and the talent available to them. But the aspect of the Bengals offense that may be more adaptable for the decision-makers in Foxboro is Cincinnati's offensive adaptability under head coach Zac Taylor.

Taylor arrived in Cincinnati fresh off a two-year stretch as an assistant to Sean McVay, who as a branch off the Mike Shanahan tree ran an offense that featured plenty of under-center passing concepts. Taylor also cut his NFL teeth in Miami for four years under head coach Joe Philbin, who worked for dyed-in-the-wool West Coast disciple Mike McCarthy in Green Bay, where under-center play was highly valued. (Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt and offensive assistant Ben McAdoo are both former McCarthy assistants.)

When Burrow was drafted No. 1 overall, instead of putting him under center frequently and operating a more traditional West Coast plan of attack, Taylor did what was best for his quarterback and played him in the shotgun. A lot. In Burrow's first two seasons, per Sports Info Solutions, the Bengals ranked third (2020) and second (2021) in spread dropbacks from the shotgun. Coming from a spread system at LSU that led to a historic 2019 for Burrow and a Heisman Trophy, that kind of turn for Taylor made sense. Soon, with the addition of Chase, the offense flourished. Burrow led the league both in completion percentage (69.9 percent) and yards per attempt (8.6) in 2021 while chucking the ball an average distance of 8.2 yards down the field.

In 2022, Taylor pivoted again. Even with his bevy of explosive weapons, opposing defenses used two-high safety shells to protect against Burrow's deep shots. The answer? Throw short. The Bengals continued to rank near the top of the league in shotgun spread attempts (second behind only Washington), but Burrow's average depth of target dropped by more than half a yard (7.6) and his yards per attempt dropped over a yard (7.3). Still, he remained one of the most efficient passers in football, ranking second in yards (5,195) and completion percentage (68.0).

In 2023, the Bengals showed a willingness to pivot once again. Though still erring on the side of playing from the shotgun prior to Burrow's season-ending wrist injury, they appeared to start to lean toward mixing in more under-center looks to diversify their attack. Burrow only dropped back to pass three times from under center in Week 8 against the 49ers, but the Bengals ran 11 times from under center and showed they could be effective against one of the best defenses in football by mixing up their attack with Burrow crouched behind Ted Karras. They went under center on four of their first 10 plays that day -- something even the team's website noted was an outlier after the fact -- and one resulted in a 15-yard pass play to Chase. They rode their shaken-up attack to a dominating 31-17 win on the road.

Burrow's injury didn't allow for the Bengals to show what they could be as an under-center offense for long, but they continued to work in under-center looks with Jake Browning in at quarterback. They ranked in the middle of the pack (18th) in under-center attempts between Weeks 11 and 18, and in that span they ranked 10th in yards per pass attempt when under center (10.1 yards).

The Bengals got Burrow comfortable early in his career by getting him weapons and sticking him in the shotgun. They asked him to launch it deep. Then short. Then they toyed with getting him under center. Though there may be some stubbornness in Burrow's game when it comes to his preference of playing from the gun, Taylor has shown a willingness to both cater to his best player while pushing a diversified attack and tweaking his scheme from year to year.

Taylor's weapons have helped his offense find success. And his quarterback has operated with machine-like efficiency. But the head coach's open-minded approach has helped Cincinnati remain among the elites when it comes to offensive football for several years now, and it's one worth studying for the Patriots.