New England PatriotsOur read
Written Oct 17, from his facts through last season
Week 5 of 2026 is the whole argument: 39.46 points, after a week 4 of 24.16. The first three weeks looked broken, 9.82, 8.02 and 3.76, and if you sat him in frustration you missed the return. He has played every game, thrown for 1,228 yards and 9 touchdowns through five weeks, and the completion rate sits 4.6 percentage points over expectation, QB9 among 35 quarterbacks with 50 or more tracked attempts. The pressure is real, 26% of his dropbacks and blitzed on 30% of all 179 charted dropbacks, but he is handling it at 3.06 seconds to throw.
The efficiency question is the one we keep coming back to. His yards per touch fell from 7.8 in 2024 to 4.3 in 2025, and last season's average depth of target of -8.0 yards ranked QB8 from the bottom among 10 qualifying quarterbacks, so the rushing production carried the scoring more than downfield passing did. At 17.0 points a game this year he is running under our preseason pace of 20.5, and our full-season number of 287 points assumed 14 games. Two big weeks do not erase three bad ones, but nothing in the usage looks diminished.
Last season he finished QB3 among 81 qualifying quarterbacks with 348 points, one spot behind Matthew Stafford, and cleared 15 points in 16 of 17 weeks. That baseline is why we ranked him QB3 for 2026. Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels are both back, so the system is unchanged. Start him in week 6 of 2026 and keep him in your lineup, and read the slow start in 2026 as the outlier rather than the trend.