With Cam Newton out, what will the Patriots offense look like? Josh McDaniels says the team will continue to readjust their game plan.

With lingering uncertainty over when exactly Patriots quarterback Cam Newton will return, questions remain as to what the team’s offense will look like in his absence.

Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels explained that with Newton out, the team’s game plan will accommodate the personnel that is available.

“The Patriots offense is whatever fits the personnel that we have the best,” McDaniels said in a conference call on Tuesday. “Last time I looked at our playbook would probably be seven or eight years ago, so, whatever our personnel does well, can do well, that’s what we try to do. Cam is a different player than what we’ve had at that position, so we try to do things that fit Cam but there’s certainly things in the past that we’ve done before that Cam does well, as well. It’s always a conglomeration of scheme that fits the personnel, that’s basically what we try to do.”

Newton, who tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, appears to be asymptomatic and could return in time for Sunday’s game if he tests negative twice this week and meets all of the protocol requirements. With him out, the Patriots will have to rely upon Brian Hoyer and Jarrett Stidham — both of whom struggled against the Kansas City Chiefs in the 26-10 loss on Monday.

While Newton’s skillset has been an offensive weapon for the Patriots, McDaniels said they’ll simply have to factor him out for now.

“Cam runs our offense. He doesn’t just run a Cam offense. There’s not a whole lot he can’t do,” he said. “There’s certain things he can do that other guys can’t, but those are easy to move into and out of the game plan if we need to.”

“You try to go in there and put together a game plan with your personnel in mind, to put around the quarterback, whichever one of them it is,” he added. “If there are some question marks – and this is the world we live in all year long – we have players that are questionable and have an injury consideration to deal with at all positions. That’s not an abnormality for us. There’s things you put in the game plan every week that you either take out toward the end of the week or maybe you add a little bit more. I think sometimes that can be overblown as far as how difficult that is for professional athletes to handle that.”

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