NFLN’s Steve Smith Sr. cites injured Kendrick Bourne, Juju Smith-Schuster as players to watch

Ahead of the Denver Broncos-New England Patriots game Sunday night, Steve Smith Sr. provided some unusual analysis on NFL Network’s pregame show. When asked for matchups to watch, Smith cited the Patriots’ wide receivers. But two of the three specific players he mentioned, Kendrick Bourne and Juju Smith-Schuster, weren’t playing in that game, with Bourne out for the season since suffering a torn ACL in Week 8 and Smith-Schuster ruled out for this game Friday with an ankle injury:

On NFLN, Steve Smith Sr. listed two injured Patriots WRs while discussing matchups to watch. "Kendrick Bourne, I know he's probably not, I think he's hurt, need him to show up. JuJu Smith-Schuster, he's on the sideline, need him to show up. Uh, who else they have?" pic.twitter.com/m2Z14q6TVP

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 25, 2023

This started with Smith initially avoiding the matchup question and talking about his experience playing in Denver himself. He then asked “What are we talking about?”

When Smith does get to the matchups, he says “Man, how about any Patriots’ wide receiver? I mean, they got like 10 of them on the staff. I need all of them. DeVante Parker, I need you to show up. Kendrick Bourne, I know he’s probably not, I think he’s hurt, need him to show up. JuJu Smith-Schuster, he’s on the sideline, need him to show up. Uh, who else they have? They got a whole bunch of guys at wide receiver that you expect to show up. They need to show up today.”

More than specific knowledge of Bourne and Smith-Schuster, the larger issue here seemed to be Smith struggling to recall which players were in the Patriots’ receiving corps. Which probably isn’t great for an area he often focuses on, and one that he chose spotlight as a matchup for this game. To his credit, he did recognize that Bourne was hurt after he initially listed him. But this still wasn’t stellar pregame analysis.

[Awful Announcing on Twitter]