Great uncertainty among the Patriots at left tackle

FOXBOROUGH – The Patriots are preparing for their third game of the season and could already have their third left tackle.

Vederian Lowe left Sunday's loss to the Seahawks with a knee injury and Chuks Okorafor was placed on the exempt/left squad list Saturday afternoon, meaning third-round rookie Caedan Wallace could be the next tackle in line to protect Jacoby Brissett's blindside against a fearsome Jets defense on Thursday night at the Meadowlands.

From here things can proceed in different ways.

The first is the simplest: Lowe is healthy and ready to play. However, the tackle was unable to finish Sunday's game due to a new knee injury — not the oblique injury he spent the rest of training camp recovering from — and Jerod Mayo did not have an update on him Monday afternoon.

“The injury assessment was this morning. Some of these guys had to get MRIs and second opinions,” Mayo said in a general speech. “Full transparency, you can give the team a diagnosis, but a lot of these guys, whether it's themselves or their agents, they want a second opinion. So I don't feel comfortable talking about it until they get their second opinion.”

Meanwhile, Okorafor doesn't look likely to play this week. Despite starting in Week 1, the veteran was benched after 12 appearances in Cincinnati and is unsure if he wants to continue playing football.

“Chuks left the building. He's not on the team,” Mayo said. “He's thinking about it, but right now he's not on the team, so I don't want to get into it. I told you I called him. We had a good conversation. It had nothing to do with football and a spot on the roster. It was just about making sure he was OK.”

The most likely path forward may be for Thursday's game to begin the way Sunday's ended: With Wallace taking over the tackle position, he became free. The third-round pick had served as a jumbo tight end before being moved to tackle in Lowe's absence and vowed to be ready if called upon against the Jets.

“I'm prepared for anything,” Wallace said. “Whatever the coaches ask me to do, whatever is best for the team, I'm here for it… (I feel) super prepared. Every day at practice, at preseason games, at the few games we've had so far, I'm just ready.”

Mayo was asked how confident he would be if Wallace started on Brissett's blind side.

“We'll see. He's taken some good snaps for us,” Mayo said. “That's what it's all about: the 'next man up' mentality. I know that sounds very corny or very cheesy, but that's the world we live in. That's the roster we have and we'll deal with it.”

Other tackles on the roster include Zach Thomas, who has played 36 offensive snaps in his three-year NFL career, practice squad member Demontrey Jacobs and Mike Onwenu, who seems very unlikely to switch sides on a short week at this point in the season.