Bill Belichick gives Adalius Thomas the Joey Galloway treatment, benches him for Titans game

October 19, 1:03 AMNew England Patriots ExaminerSean Crowe

Previous Next

2 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the New England Patriots Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Adalius Thomas, seen here celebrating with teammate Pierre Woods, was benched Sunday.

(AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

It’s hard to question anything a head coach does when his team wins 59-0, but the decision not to dress Adalius Thomas for Sunday’s game against the Titans certainly raised some eyebrows.

Throughout the game, in between celebrating touchdowns, Patriots fans speculated about why Thomas wasn’t active. The theories ranged from a secret injury to a potential trade, but really, nobody had any idea why a guy who is supposed to be a leader on the Patriots defense (and is the second highest paid player) was inactive.

So when Bill Belichick was asked “Personnel-wise, Adalius Thomas was inactive and he wasn’t on the injury report all week. Was there anything personal with him?” during his press conference, Patriots Nation was curious to hear the answer.

Belichick’s response was: "No, we just went with the players we thought would have the bigger role in the game."

Adalius Thomas was, for all intents and purposes, benched. He was given the Joey Galloway treatment.

Thomas hadn’t been a healthy scratch for an NFL game since his rookie season. The Patriots signed him prior to the 2007 season with visions of a younger, faster Mike Vrabel dancing in their heads.

What they’ve gotten, especially recently, has been anything but. Through five games he has 10 solo tackles and only 1 sack. He’s been invisible against the run and completely unable to generate any type of pass rush.

The signs have been there that the Patriots weren’t happy with his production, we just haven’t been paying attention. In the first game, he played every defensive snap. Since then, his snaps have steadily dropped every week until the Denver game, where he played in less than half of the team’s defensive snaps.

Make no mistake about it: Adalius Thomas was benched because his play has stunk. There’s no other reason.

Bill Belichick’s defense played the 3-4 more this week than in previous weeks, and guys like Derrick Burgess, Pierre Woods, and Rob Ninkovich manned the outside linebacker spots. Adalius Thomas should be able to outplay all three of those guys in his sleep.

But he’s not.

We’ve been dogging Derrick Burgess this year for being the invisible man, but he’s essentially been the same player as Thomas. His stats are nearly identical. That’s completely unacceptable.

This benching was meant, in my opinion, to send Thomas a message. He can now go one of two ways. He can use this as motivation and come back motivated and better than ever. Or he can become the next Joey Galloway and completely disappear.

The ball is in his court.

You can follow Sean Crowe on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or email him at scrowe@gmail.com.