The New England Patriots picked up a clean 20-3 win against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Gillette Stadium in Week 2. However, the postgame locker room didn’t really have much of a celebration. Late in the 1st quarter, starting right guard Mike Onwenu went down with a nasty ankle injury. The injury cast a shadow over the Patriots’ first victory of the season during their home opener.
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The play went down in Pittsburgh’s red zone while quarterback Drake Maye scrambled around to dodge heavy incoming pressure. Pittsburgh Steelers star pass rusher T.J. Watt dived in for the sack and rolled awkwardly right into Onwenu’s planted leg. Onwenu hit the turf, was hurt, couldn’t put any weight down, and needed a cart ride to get off the field. Following this incident, Patriots TE Hunter Henry opened up about watching his longtime teammate go down.
“He’s a guy that just means so much to this locker room—to these guys in here. Puts so much work in. You hate to see it. It’s hard to be honest with you… The guy that you’ve gone to battle with so many times, seeing him laying there hurting, it’s hard. Hopefully we can get him some positive news. Some aspect that it’s not as severe, and he can attack the next steps of whatever that looks like. We’re gonna be behind him 100% because that’s our guy,” Henry said on WEEI’s Jones & Keefe show.
To understand why Mike Onwenu’s first-quarter injury sucked all the air out of Foxborough, you have to look at how deeply woven he is into this team’s fabric. Even though he was drafted 182nd overall in the sixth round of the 2020 NFL Draft, he shocked coaches by playing 4 different OL positions as a rookie.
He took that loyalty to another level in 2024 when he fired his agents to represent himself at the negotiating table, locking in a 3-year, $57 million contract. He did that specifically because he believed Foxborough was “where I built myself.” So when a team player like that gets carted off the field, suddenly the victory feels like an outright heartbreak.
Those words from Henry hit home because both guys have been holding down the locker room together since 2021. They’ve survived coaching changes and rocky rebuilding years side by side. So seeing a close brother hurt like that stings, and Henry made sure everyone knows the team has Onwenu’s back.
Star QB Drake Maye, now in his third season leading the offense, felt that exact same pain about losing Mike Onwenu.
“It is heartbreaking when you see a guy like Mike, who has played through injuries, has been here since he was a rookie. He leaves it all out there,” Maye told the reporters after the game.
Sunday was Onwenu’s 100th game for the Patriots. Unfortunately, the medical updates were just as bad as everyone feared. ESPN’s Mike Reiss reported initial X-rays showed a broken right ankle, and Dr. David Chao noted it likely requires season-ending surgery. By Tuesday, New England officially placed Onwenu on their IR list.
To make matters tougher, Onwenu wasn’t the only casualty. New England also saw Dre’Mont Jones, Craig Woodson, and Eli Raridon get knocked out on Sunday. Head Coach Mike Vrabel pointed out that plenty of fresh backups had to step up immediately, and they’ll need that same grit facing Jacksonville on the road next week.
“I don’t think he’ll (Mike Onwenu) be available here in the short term, so I wouldn’t anticipate him being out there here in the next few weeks. So if that changes and it ends up being longer than that, then we’ll let you guys know… He hurt his ankle; Mike hurt his ankle. I think you guys could see that on TV,” Vrabel said in the post-game presser.
Vrabel extensively talked about Mike Onwenu and his backup, 36-year-old veteran Greg Van Roten.
“I think he had a few plays that he’d like to have back, so would everybody. But I thought he had some positive plays. Again, to go through an entire game, there are going to be some good ones, some bad ones, and some ones that we have to eliminate. So, I think that he stepped in there, was ready to go,” Vrabel added.
The job to replicate what Mike Onwenu does on that O-line is difficult. However, Van Roten will at least have the advantage of playing alongside a familiar face in right tackle Morgan Moses. The two actually shared an offensive line back in 2021 with the New York Jets. That being said, Mike Onwenu, who played with his heart on his sleeve for the Patriots, will be missed for the rest of the season.