Immediately after the Jets made good on the second chance provided by Patriots defensive lineman Chris Jones’ personal foul for trying to push a teammate through the Jets’ line on a missed field goal in overtime, Patriots coach Bill Belichick said he thought it was a bad call because the push didn’t come from the second level of the defense.
Belichick was wrong about the rule, which makes no distinction about where players line up at the start of the play despite some confusion stemming from the way the league referred to the rule when it was put in place during the offseason. Jones said he knew the rule and said he deserved the blame for committing the foul, but Belichick said Monday that the burden should fall on him instead of Jones.
“I think Chris is obviously trying to do the right thing by stepping up and taking responsibility but that’s not his responsibility, it’s ours,” Belichick said, via the Boston Globe. “We just have to do a better job of coaching that. It’s not his fault, that’s on me [and] the coaching staff, we just have to do a better job there.”
Belichick said it was the team’s job to know the rules when asked if confusion about how it was articulated led to the penalty and that Jones was doing something that the team’s coaches had told him to do. If that’s the case, it’s hard to argue against Belichick’s request for blame on a costly penalty.