The Patriots just got GOOD and BAD news...

The New England Patriots just got some good and bad news ahead of their Sunday matchup versus the Las Vegas Raiders as they try and get to an above 500 winning percentage on the season. They're going to be doing so with some significant losses in the secondary while also getting some good news on the offensive side of the ball. Welcome to Patriots Digest, everybody. I'm Chase Andrews, and I hope you're having a great day wherever you guys might be. Lots of stuff to break down before that, though. Make sure you hit that subscribe button as we are going to be covering the Patriots every single day this season. And of course, we're live this Sunday, Patriots versus the Las Vegas Raiders. We've got some cool new things to check out, so make sure you join us. It's going to be fun, and I'm really excited to show you the new system that we have in place for our watch-alongs. But let's get into the bad news first, and that is the Patriots have ruled out six players against the Las Vegas Raiders, with four players being in the secondary. So not exactly what you want to see. Those six players that have been ruled out are as followed. Christian Gonzalez, Carlton Davis, Reggie Gilliam, Karen Prunty, Shannon Canada, and Mac Hollins. Two on the offensive side, Gilliam and Hollins are definitely big losses on the offensive side, but they kind of fail to compare to the four cornerbacks that you are now without on this team, which is very much a tough thing to consider when you look at what we can see. So knowing that you don't have Christian Gonzalez, knowing that you don't have Carlton Davis, that's your two starting cornerbacks right there. that's not great. Then you add in the fact that Karen Prunty and Channing Canada are not there, that's not great as well. You can look here, right, in the DBs. You are in a tough spot without this. You literally don't have a spot in the cornerback on their side. Now, we expect for Charles Woods and Marcus Jones to be those guys, but you have a nickelback slot that you also got to fill as well. So, Kildon Vildor, Marcus Jones, and Charles Woods are going to be the guys. They also did sign a guy off the practice squad as well, which we'll get to in a moment, but not exactly what you want to see from this team. and of course i still think the patriots are going to win this game against the Las Vegas Raiders which is why i'm trading yes on Kalshi for the patriots to win this one i'm putting $80 on the patriots on yes if they do win which i expect them to i'm going to get $121.92 back for this $80 trade on Kalshi you're trading directly against other users not the house like a traditional sports book you are going to be buying yes or no contracts on the outcome of events across real life events like sports politics or even the weather for example you can trade on how much snow is going to come into New England this fall and this winter. So that's kind of pretty cool. Obviously, you can trade on the game. You can trade on who's going to score a touchdown. But if you are interested in trading on Kalshi today, our presenting sponsor, well, do me a favor. Use the link in the description or on the pinned comment. And then when you get there, use this code, DIGESTNFL when signing up for an account. As new users who trade $25 get an extra $55 instantly added to their account. Thank you for Kalshi for sponsoring today's show. So given we do have six players ruled out officially, Gonzalez, Pronti in Canada, and then Hollins has his calf injury. What exactly do we expect from the secondary? I mean, you've got three, you've got four cornerbacks out, two of them being starters. It's not great. It's definitely not great. Carlton Davis had a really good game this past week against the Buffalo Bills, but I think it's somewhat being overlooked. Especially when you consider that last week, they were without Christian Gonzalez, and Davis was the number one cornerback. And guess what? He performed well. He did the things he needed to do to win the game. And you know that, of course, He's got the safety pickoff there from Woodson, so that was nice. But the secondary is in a very bad spot. So, Kendall Vildor is going to be a guy who we're going to look at. He's going to be in a very much bigger role. I trust him because what we saw in the preseason was great. and Mike Vrabel trusts him as well. As we can see here, Mike Vrabel credits Kendall Vildor for being ready. When called upon last week, he did come in and obviously play without Gonzo. He said he called the cornerback a veteran who's played a lot of football. Now, Vildor is slated to have a role on defense this Sunday with both Gonzalez and Davis out he might even be a starter at this point with the way it's looking so here are the healthy cornerbacks for the New England Patriots Marcus Jones Charles Woods Kendall Vildor is on practice squad he's going to be brought up and Azalea Hamilton I believe also got signed recently to the practice squad he'll be called up as well so not great um not not great in the slightest so when you think about what we can um expect i definitely get a little concerned for sure, knowing that the cornerback room is going to be filled with Marcus Jones, Kendall Vildor, and Karen Prunty. Or not Karen Prunty, but Aziz Hamilton. It's going to be interesting. Also, Charles Woods. I guess I kind of forgot him, but it's definitely a scary thing. I will tell you that. So, Vildor is expected to help replace one of the starters. Charles Woods has a shoulder injury that has him listed as a belief questionable at the moment. I think he should play, but he's listed there. You've got to disguise coverages and pressures for Kirk Cousins. He's a veteran quarterback. It's going to be hard to kind of make him you know mess up especially the raiders like they're a good team i don't want to sit here and try and uh disassociate how good the raiders have played even though they did lose this past week to the kansas city chiefs they're a good team they're a very good team and last year patriots they lost to this team who didn't win that much like that's something that we forget about they lost the game last year to the to the the to the the raiders so definitely something to look at and of course the defense is just one thing the offense also has their issues with Mac Hollins as he's also going to be absent now and that's going to be an interesting part of I guess the offensive structure of this team because you look at the wide receivers now you've got Dobbs you've got Kyle Williams and you've got Pop Douglas there are some options in there you know we could see a little more of Efton Chisholm which after last week I don't think anybody's going to complain with some more of Efton Chisholm I think that's going to be a problem at all obviously the question that becomes who gets the targets because we know that Hollins is a very big and maybe top target for Drake May Romeo Dobbs, Pop Douglas are potential options obviously Kyle Williams, he's run a lot of routes he's been open, but never really gotten him the ball that much this season, and then Efton Chisholm is also there, still waiting on A.J. Brown, it would have been really nice to get him back this week, obviously there was no shot given he had officially not been on the full injury reserve for four weeks, but would have been nice, however, we'll see what it goes. Drake Maye has been performing well though when you go back to last week and what he's able to do really solid, like I'm not going to sit here and say that he was not able to perform. And I want to start to say, like, the wide receiver core last year wasn't that good, and he was able to perform with it. So I'm not going to say that he can't perform with what they have at hand. It definitely does make it a little harder, and it puts the Patriots in an interesting spot for sure. But the good news that we did get is that Ramondre Stevenson and Christian Barmore seemed to be pretty good to go on Sunday. Stevenson even came out and basically said, hey, I'm ready to play. I mean, you can see here from the quote, I'm feeling great, ready to go, which is nice because we really need Stevenson to play this running back room. It's definitely something that is a key part, and you can see last year through the final five games this season and throughout the final games of the year last year is just really solid for him in a lot of things that kind of really puts him into a good spot. So him and Travion together really make the running back room different. I think one of them, it's hard because you have different styles of running, and so you can hone in on that one style if you only have one of the backs. you have to you can't hold in on it and it makes it a lot harder for defensive teams to go in there also Christian Barmore has done really well against the Raiders versus Las Vegas he's had five tackles in his career um this season he's averaging 1.3 so pretty solid that he's going to be playing pretty well and you know got some positive updates on that Barmore was a full participant Stevenson said he's ready in May of course you know the whole thing about his shoulder well he was a full participant on Thursday as well so can the Patriots win without their cornerbacks is the question at hand um let us know in the comment section you know if you think the Patriots can win without their cornerbacks then type y for yes and say the offense will carry him or if you think that the cornerbacks are going to be you know too much for the Patriots to overcome then type in for no or you can type b as well but uh can New England win this game without their four starting cornerbacks great news to see at Stevenson I'm excited that he is going to be in a good spot I'm very hopeful that he can be a very good piece of this offense but At the same time, I do understand that the pressure is on for this offense to perform. The Raiders' defense is solid. You've got Max Crosby, so you know it's going to be a test for Will Campbell. And you know the top-tier edge rushers last year gave him problems. He's had to face some decent edge rushers this year, so he's performed well. But this is going to be probably the bigger test than he's had in the first four games. Of course, we'll see this on Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern time. we'll be live for that game so come check us out again and of course we'll keep you updated as we go into tomorrow with any news or reports leading up to the game for now though guys we appreciate watching we'll see you next time Yeah