Hunter Henry’s Career Day Tarnished By Patriots OT Loss To Seahawks

Patriots tight end Hunter Henry delivered significant production in New England’s Week 2 overtime loss to the Seattle Seahawks. The veteran caught eight of 12 targets for a career-high 109 receiving yards.

“We were in a rhythm early. I feel like in the third quarter, we stalled,” Henry told reporters after the loss, per team-provided video. “We have to be better, coming out fast in the second half. I feel like we were able to run the ball late, which we had a lot of success with. I wish we were able to execute there in overtime, on that third down, and even on the early downs. I wish we put ourselves ahead of the chains in a better position so we could finish it.”

The star pass catcher missed a week of practice as well as New England’s final preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles for undisclosed reasons. Henry led all Patriots receivers in catches, targets and yards after just 18 yards on two receptions in Week 1’s upset win over the Cincinnati Bengals. In Week 2, Henry appears to have built some consistent chemistry with veteran quarterback Jacoby Brissett.

“I know there were some good things we did out there, but we have to do better,” Henry said. “There’s still some plays that can be made out there. We need those plays because, obviously, we came up just short.”

He said he would “100 %” give it all back for a New England win and discussed how his success could translate to the receiver room.

“(Seattle) was playing a lot of zone. We were able to execute some things,” he said. “We’re going to need those guys. We’ve got a good group there. They need to hold their heads high because we’re going to need them to make big plays. The ball wasn’t finding them today, but we’re going to need them this week and going forward.”

Henry hopes the Patriots’ receiving corps can build on their success despite coming up short in overtime.

“There’s some things that we have to clean up. It’s early in the season. I’ve got to be better on certain things, especially in the run game,” Henry said. “I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to do better in the pass game. I had some success getting the ball today, but I think there’s areas I can clean up to continue to get better. That’s my main goal this week and going forward. Continuing to climb, continuing to get better, and learning from this.

“It stinks to lose the home opener the way we did. We competed really hard. We’ve got to keep going. We have a good football team. That was a good football team that we played against. We’ve got the pieces. We just have to put it all together.”