Patriots remain sympathetic, confident for Cyrus Jones

MassLive.com

Whether or not it was punt return woes or getting torched by Breshad Perriman, Cyrus Jones had a game that he'd like to forget against Baltimore. (Mondays, right?)

It's not just easy for Jones to be rattled, it's easy for coaches and fans to be pissed at him as well. Surely, the jokes about Bill Belichick getting ready to ship him to Cleveland in the offseason will write themselves.

The Patriots, however, have gone to bat for the young rookie. Via CSN New England's Tom E. Curran, Julian Edelman talked about how to move forward from fundamental mistakes:

“I’ve been in that situation,” admitted Julian Edelman. “I’ve been in that doghouse and it’s gonna suck. But what you do to get out of it is you gotta work hard. There’s two things you can do: you can go in the tank or you can work your way out of it. Cy, he works hard, he practices hard, he’ll be alright. He’s gonna work his way out of it. That’s just growing pains. That can happen to anyone. It happened to me, it happened to Wes. You can go in the tank or you can work out and I believe he’ll work out of it.”

Devin McCourty had similar words of encouragement, via the same Curran piece:

“Just keep on him, keep telling him, ‘Keep on coming out here playing,’" was Devin McCourty’s answer when asked what a captain could tell Jones. “I’m not new to struggles. I’ve had struggles throughout my career here and you’ve just got to keep playing. It’s football. We have a tough football team. We have a lot of guys in that locker room that care about each other, great leadership. That’s what helped me through was just keep playing when I had some struggles throughout my career. He’s a very talented player. He’s young. He’s a rookie. You’re going to have some bad plays out there. You’ve just got to keep playing. We’ll continue to count on him, keep on making sure his confidence stays high. I have no doubt that he’s going to rebound and keep playing for us and keep playing well for us.”

Most importantly, Belichick has shown support for Jones as well. Speaking to reporters in a conference call on Tuesday (via the Boston Herald's Chris Mason), Belichick offered confidence for the Patriots' top pick in the 2016 draft, as well as the rest of the roster. He also expressed that mistakes are all a part of the game.

"We have confidence in all of our players," Belichick said. "We've seen (Matthew) Slater fumble before. We've seen (Tom) Brady throw an INT before, too," Belichick said.

Cyrus Jones had made quite a few mistakes that energized the Baltimore Ravens on Wednesday and nearly fueled a comeback effort for them, but the important thing is that the Pats won the game. Mistakes are a part of any young player's career, and it's worth seeing how he bounces back.

Follow Rob Riches on Twitter @Riches61