Shalise Manza Young of the Boston Globe was the first to report than rookie wide receiver Josh Boyce was seen limping out of the locker room, with no shoe on his right foot. Boyce was expected to be one of the players to pick up the slack with tight end Rob Gronkowski out for the season and fellow rookies Aaron Dobson and Kenbrell Thompkins sidelined with injuries of their own.

Boyce was active in the game, making four receptions on seven targets for 42 yards. Of course, he had his hands on the three incompletions, but either dropped the ball or was hit to dislodge the ball. Boyce was unable to finish the game, although the injury wasn't disclosed.

This is similar to the loss of Aaron Dobson against the Denver Broncos, where Thompkins all of a sudden started to receive snaps over Dobson and it wasn't known until after the game that Dobson was hurt. Hopefully Boyce's injury isn't as serious as Dobson's, which caused him to sit out the next three weeks.

The loss of Boyce forced the Patriots to play with three slot receivers with extraordinarily similar skill sets (Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Austin Collie), and likely prevented the Patriots from being slightly more creative with their red zone play calling late in the game.