gresh and fauria: Why a Belichick trade to Washington makes sense
There was some odd shuffling at the cornerback position from the Patriots to start Sunday's game versus the Commanders. Mainly, Shaun Wade starting on the boundary over both J.C. Jackson and Jack Jones.
The whole situation was odd. Jackson wasn't spotted during warmups despite being active, and was announced as a defensive starter despite remaining on the sideline for the first two Washington drives.
Eventually Jackson would replace Wade, but Jones (Jack, that is) remained not only on the sideline, but on the bench with a towel draped over his head. He too, in due time, would end up seeing the field, in the Patriots' fourth go-around on defense.
Neither player was made available to the media following the game.
Following Sunday's contest and into Monday, head coach Bill Belichick was mum on the strange rotation. "Everybody played. They all played. We played all the corners."
"Yeah," he begrudgingly said on WEEI's The Greg Hill Show. "I'm not going to get into that."
On Tuesday, New England's assistant coaches spoke with the media, and cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino had a bit better of an explanation as to why Jonathan Jones and Shaun Wade started Sunday on the field:
"Things happen," he explained. "I put the guys out there that I felt like were ready to go in that moment. Everybody knows what they need to do to play. So, I'll just kind of leave it at that. It's really not, like, I'm not trying to create a narrative. I trust all my guys. They all went in and played, right? So, I've said this from, I think, Week 1, if they're at the game that means they're ready, they're prepared, and they're ready to go into the game. I have faith in all my guys to go out there and execute the game plan and do a great job. So, really just did what I thought was best in that moment."
Pellegrino then spoke about Jones sitting on the bench while the rest of the defensive reserves walked the sideline:
"Yeah so... I'm up in the box so I didn't really see that," he explained. "You can ask Jack about that but I would say that would be an outlier. I've never seen Jack really, you know, on the bench when the defense was up so, it must have been something going on for a quick second. But I'm not going to speak on it. He can talk about it. I wouldn't blow it out of proportion. It's probably just one thing that happened. If it was a consistent thing, would I be concerned? Yeah. But it's not a consistent thing. So I'm not. I wouldn't really hang my hat on that one. That's not the guy that I know."
Make sure to follow Mike on Twitter @mikekadlick, and follow @WEEI for the latest up-to-date Patriots and Boston sports news!
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