Mike Onwenu was carted off late in the first quarter Sunday after landing awkwardly on his right leg, and the Patriots quickly ruled their starting right guard out for the rest of the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Greg Van Roten stepped in at right guard as New England lost one of its most reliable interior pieces in the middle of the opening quarter.
The injury mattered immediately because Onwenu has been one of New England’s most durable players and its longest-tenured one, a sixth-round pick out of Michigan in 2020 who had missed just three games in his NFL career. He also led New England in offensive snaps played in 2022, 2024 and 2025, which made his exit more than a routine shuffle up front. When a player with that track record leaves on a cart, the concern goes beyond one drive.
T.J. Watt was the player nearest the collision, landing awkwardly on Onwenu’s right leg while pressuring Drake Maye. The sequence left the Patriots with an immediate hole on the interior line and forced Van Roten into the kind of role New England had planned for him as its top backup there. That is the practical problem now: the team lost not just a starter, but a player it had come to count on every week.
There is also a deeper edge to the day’s development. Ben Brown is back from the knee injury he suffered during the preseason, Walter Rouse was a healthy scratch, and Jake Kubas and Jacob Rizy sit on the practice squad, but none of that changes the fact that Onwenu’s status is the one that reshapes the line. The Patriots can patch a series. They cannot ignore the possibility that one of their most dependable blockers is dealing with a significant ankle injury.
What happens next is the question that now hangs over New England’s interior line: whether Onwenu’s injury keeps him out beyond Sunday and how much of the Patriots’ protection plan must be rewritten if it does. For a player who has rarely been absent, even one cart ride raised the stakes immediately.
