Mike Reiss asks some good questions in his Week 1 notebook, but the first one is still bugging me.
“Where’s JuJu Smith-Schuster? That was one of my top questions coming out of the Patriots 25-20 season-opening loss to the Eagles. Smith-Schuster was signed to a 3-year $25 base contract in the offseason - essentially picked over retaining Jakobi Meyers - and he played 43 of possible 80 offensive snaps, had limited impact, and wasn’t on the field in the no-huddle offense in crunch time. Conditioning? Managing his prior knee injury? Something else? If it’s a pure football decision, which is what coaches relayed, that rookie Kayshon Boutte (55 snaps, 0 catches) was deemed a better option in crunch time/the no-huddle offense stood out to me.