Patriots Lose Henderson for Weeks, and Campbell Is Week-to-Week After a Costly Win Over the Raiders

Sunday felt like a statement. The New England Patriots hung 45 points on the Las Vegas Raiders, Drake Maye threw five touchdown passes, and Foxborough got to spend the fourth quarter enjoying itself. Tuesday brought the invoice. ESPN reported that running back TreVeyon Henderson will miss multiple weeks with a high ankle sprain, and the same round of updates brought word that left tackle Will Campbell — the man guarding Maye's blind side — is week-to-week with an injury to the same right knee that cost him a month of his rookie season. New England won the game 45-17 and still managed to lose two of the most important young players on its offense in the same first half.

Henderson: Multiple Weeks, but No Surgery

Start with the backfield, because that timeline is the firmer of the two. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported that Henderson's ankle injury, sustained in the first half on Sunday, has been diagnosed as a high ankle sprain. According to theScore, which summarized Schefter's reporting, the injury does not require surgery, and the Patriots are hopeful Henderson can beat the usual recovery curve because he is regarded inside the building as a quick healer. NBC Sports carried the same core details: no surgery, but multiple weeks on the shelf while the ankle recovers.

High ankle sprains are the injury football people dread precisely because the timeline is so slippery. A garden-variety ankle sprain costs a running back a week or two. The high version — damage to the ligaments above the ankle joint — lingers, and it is especially cruel for a player whose game is built on planting, cutting and accelerating in one motion. Henderson had four carries for 22 yards and one catch for 16 yards before leaving on Sunday, a modest line in a blowout, but the season numbers tell the larger story of a player still searching for last year's gear: 42 carries for 163 yards and a touchdown in four appearances, at 3.9 yards per carry. theScore noted that is a real drop from the 5.1 yards per attempt Henderson averaged as a rookie, and he had already missed the season opener with an ankle issue. The career ledger, via Field Level Media, is a reminder of why New England invested a second-round pick in the Ohio State product in 2025: 1,074 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns, plus 37 catches for 243 yards and a score, across 21 games. The talent is not in question. The availability, right now, is.

Campbell: The Scare, Then the Exhale

If Henderson's update was straightforwardly bad, Campbell's came in two drafts. The first, reported by Tom Pelissero of The Ringer and carried by theScore, was the optimistic version: the 22-year-old left tackle avoided a major knee injury and is considered week-to-week. The second, from an ESPN source via TSN, put a name on the injury — an MCL sprain in his right knee — and said Campbell is expected to miss some game action. Crucially, the same ESPN reporting said the initial belief is that this sprain is not as bad as the Grade 3 torn MCL Campbell suffered on the same knee last November, the injury that sent him to injured reserve. He returned for the postseason admittedly short of fully healed, and struggled to protect Maye down the stretch. Nobody in Foxborough wants a sequel to that movie, which is why week-to-week should be read as a genuine relief rather than a disappointment: the alternative was a season re-railroaded in October.

The mechanism was the kind of fluke that makes offensive line coaches age in dog years. Per TSN's account of the ESPN report, a Raiders defender tackled running back Rhamondre Stevenson into Campbell's leg on a second-quarter rushing attempt — Campbell's own teammate, driven backward into his planted right knee. Campbell, the fourth overall pick in the 2025 draft, has started all 18 games he has appeared in as a Patriot, per Field Level Media, and missed four games during that rookie season with the previous knee injury. There is no replacing a franchise left tackle. There is only surviving his absence, which brings us to the rookie.

Caleb Lomu Just Took the Most Important Audition in the AFC East

When Campbell went down, New England turned to Caleb Lomu, its first-round pick in the 2026 draft, and the early returns were about as good as a cold debut at left tackle gets. The 98.5 The Sports Hub snap-count review credited Lomu with 49 snaps, 47 of them at left tackle, and just one pressure allowed after he entered the game. Sports Illustrated likewise noted that Lomu surrendered only one pressure in relief duty. For a rookie asked to protect a franchise quarterback mid-game, invisibility is the highest compliment available, and head coach Mike Vrabel paid it, via TSN: he didn't think the moment was too big for Lomu, and you didn't really notice him much — which, for a left tackle, is a good thing.

The depth chart behind Lomu is thinner than anyone would like, though there may be help ripening on schedule. The ESPN report carried by TSN pointed to Marcus Bryant, a 2025 seventh-round pick who was tracking as the top swing tackle in the preseason before being placed on injured reserve with a designation to return; he was eligible to begin practicing last week. New England has already lost multiple offensive linemen for the season, per ESPN, so Bryant's return to practice is not a footnote — it is a lifeline. Expect the Patriots to manage Campbell's week-to-week status like a hawk manages the wind: no rushing the cornerstone back onto a knee that has already betrayed him once, especially with a bye-week-shaped cushion nowhere in sight.

What Sunday Against the Jets Now Looks Like

So here is the reshuffled offense that hosts the New York Jets (2-3) on Sunday. The Patriots (3-2) will lean more heavily on Stevenson, the starter who has carried 57 times for 227 yards this season per theScore, with second-year back Corey Kiner next in line — Field Level Media flagged exactly that plan. Stevenson brings power and pass-game competence; what he cannot replicate is Henderson's home-run speed, and defenses know it. Expect heavier boxes, more Maye on the move, and a premium on the quick passing game while Lomu holds down the left edge. There is one piece of offsetting good news: Vrabel has said there is a chance receiver A.J. Brown is activated off injured reserve in time for Sunday, which we covered in our report on Brown's possible return.

Zoom out and Sunday's win still counts most. Maye's five-touchdown afternoon — relive it in our full recap of the rout — announced a Patriots team that expects to matter in January. But January teams are built on surviving weeks exactly like this one: two young cornerstones down, a rookie at left tackle, a division rival coming to town. How New England looked against Las Vegas, and what the Raiders do next, is in our look at the Raiders' road ahead. Keep up with all of it on our Sports front. The Patriots' season didn't get derailed on Tuesday. It got its first real stress test — and the grade gets posted on Sunday.