Kendrick Bourne still isn't playing much, even with Jakobi Meyers missing

BOSTON -- For the bulk of August and through the first week of the season, Kendrick Bourne's spot in the doghouse of the Patriots coaching staff was a dominating story line. That cooled over the past couple of weeks, but after Sunday, it's sure to once again be a major talking point.

That's because, even with Jakobi Meyers missing Sunday's game due to a knee injury, Kendrick Bourne barely played.

The Patriots ran 66 plays on offense. Bourne was on the field for just 18 of them, 27 percent of the offensive workload. Of all the players who took at least one snap on offense on Sunday, Bourne played the least.

As he tends to be, Bourne was quite productive in that limited opportunity, catching four passes for 58 yards. He was the team's second-leading receiver -- and that's without counting his 6-yard reception that was wiped away due to an illegal formation penalty on Isaiah Wynn.

Nobody would ever make Bourne out to be a current-day Randy Moss or Jerry Rice. But in his time with the Patriots, he's shown only that he's capable of helping the offense and the football team when he's on the field. So his extremely limited playing time remains a bit confounding. 

Bill Belichick was asked on Monday morning what Bourne can do to get more playing time. The answer was a bit vague.

"We played all our skill players yesterday. I think they all played quite a bit, other than Pierre [Strong]," Belichick said. "But both backs, both tight ends, all the receivers played. So. But we moved the ball. We just had turnovers, but we moved the ball well, with the groups that were in there -- running game and passing game. Obviously the turnovers hurt us."

Belichick is right on the playing time. The productivity, though, can be questioned.

DeVante Parker was on the field for 97 percent of the Patriots' offensive snaps, and he made the most of them, catching five passes for 156 yards. 

Lil'Jordan Humphrey, who may be playing some kind of hybrid role as a big-bodied blocker in the run game as well as a receiver, was on the field for 82 percent of the Patriots' offensive snaps. Among skill players, only Parker had more snaps than Humphrey. Despite the playing time, Humphrey was targeted just once, and he and Mac Jones were not on the same page as the pass fell incomplete.

Nelson Agholor had 41 receiving yards on two receptions, the second of which he fumbled away in the fourth quarter. He was on the field for 50 snaps, 76 percent of the offensive workload. Tight end Hunter Henry had just one catch for eight yards, despite being on the field for 70 percent of the snaps. Jonnu Smith had four receptions but for just 25 yards while taking 48 percent of the snaps.

The Patriots did move the ball, to the tune of 447 yards. But the bulk of that came from Parker and Rhamondre Stevenson, who had 101 yards from scrimmage on his 16 touches.

On the season, Bourne has caught seven passes on nine targets for 115 yards, while playing just 23 percent of the team's offensive snaps. Rumors surfaced that he missed a pregame meeting before a preseason game, thus removing him from the good graces of de facto offensive coordinator Matt Patricia. Outside of those reports, there's been no official explanation as to why the receiver who took more than half of the Patriots' offensive snaps last year has seen that playing time halved in 2022.

He has seemingly made the team better whenever he's gotten his opportunities to play, but -- even with an injury that removed Jakobi Meyers from the field entirely -- he's still not getting many of those opportunities.