The New England Patriots can use any break they can get in the midst of their 2-9 season and they might get one when they face the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 13. Chargers wide receiver Keenan Allen missed his team's first two practices this week, being listed as a non-participant due to a quad injury. Like many Patriots fans (or at least among those who still want the team to win), Bill Belichick wouldn't mind if he took some extra time to rest the injury this weekend.
“If they want to rest him this week, that would be alright with us,” the Patriots coach jokingly told reporters on Friday when asked about the target disparity among the Chargers' receivers.
Allen has still been every bit of the star receiver he's been through much of his career in 2023, even as he's gotten older and battled injuries. He leads the league in receptions (97), third in receiving yards (1,117) and tied for fifth in receiving touchdowns (seven) entering Sunday's game, proving to be among the game's elite receivers.
Beyond Allen though, the Chargers have struggled to get much production out of their wide receiver corps following Mike Williams' season-ending injury earlier in the season. No other wide receiver has more than one receiving touchdown this season and only one other wide receiver on their active roster has over 200 receiving yards this season.
What Bill Belichick said about Patriots' Chargers preparations as they might be without Keenan Allen
Belichick gave some insight on how the Patriots might prepare for the Chargers' receiving corps and how to adjust if Allen won't play.
“We deal with that. That’s a potential every week,” Belichick said. “A guy could go out there on the first play and not be able to play the rest of the week. You never know when that’s going to happen. There are times when guys aren’t in there for whatever reason — equipment, or whatever it happens to be. We would make whatever the matchups are, whatever the adjustments are that we would make if he’s not in there.”
“Sometimes they change what they do. It might be a different personnel group. You don’t have to substitute a receiver with a receiver. You could put another tight end in there. This is a team that has multiple tight ends. Or, they could not. They could put another receiver in there. So, if there’s not a lot of history of what they do in those situations, you have to be ready for maybe a couple things it could be.”
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