Patriots Veteran Planning To Talk With Jack Jones About Bench Behavior

FRANKFURT, Germany — Mac Jones wasn’t the only Patriots player benched in Sunday’s loss to the Indianapolis Colts. He wasn’t even the only Jones.

Cornerback Jack Jones also sat out the Patriots’ first two defensive possessions and saw little playing time thereafter, logging just 10 defensive snaps in New England’s 10-6 loss at Frankfurt Stadium. It was the second-lowest snap count of Jones’ two-year NFL career, with the only lower coming in a game he left due to injury.

Making Jones’ sporadic usage more notable was that while the Patriots’ defense played its first two series, the 25-year-old was seated on the bench with a hood over his head. The rest of New England’s defensive reserves stood along the sideline, waiting to check in if called upon. Jones hardly moved for the entire first quarter.

Jones displayed similar sideline behavior a week earlier during a home loss to the Washington Commanders. He sat the first three series of that game after reportedly missing curfew at the team hotel the night before.

Veteran safety Jabrill Peppers, who said last week that Jones accepted his punishment “like a man,” said Sunday that the second-year pro hadn’t given an explanation for why he was sitting away from the team.

“No, not yet,” Peppers said postgame. “I’ve got a very good relationship with him. I’m going to go talk to him, see where his head’s at. We’ve got a bye week coming up. Chill out and refresh, reload and come back ready to go to New York.”

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Patriots cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino downplayed Jones’ apparent disengagement after the Washington game.

“If it was a consistent thing, would I be concerned? Yeah,” Pellegrino said last week. “But it’s not a consistent thing, so I wouldn’t really hang my hat on that one. That’s not the guy that I know.”

It now has become a consistent thing for Jones, whose second NFL season has been defined by off-the-field issues. Over the summer, the 2022 fourth-round draft pick was arrested at Logan Airport on gun charges that later were dropped after he agreed to probation and community service.

Jones then suffered a hamstring injury in practice that sidelined him for the first six games, and he’s now seen his playing time dwindle in consecutive games, going from 45 snaps in a Week 8 loss to Miami to 30 against Washington and 10 against Indy.

The Patriots chose to play most of Sunday’s game with Jonathan Jones and Shaun Wade as their outside cornerbacks, with Myles Bryant manning his usual slot position. They were without Christian Gonzalez and Marcus Jones, who both are on injured reserve with season-ending shoulder injuries, as well as J.C. Jackson, who was told to stay home due to reported reliability problems.

Bill Belichick said he expected Jackson to rejoin the team ahead of its Week 12 matchup with the Giants, but it’s clear he and Jack Jones both are in the head coach’s doghouse.