Bill Belichick confirms Colts and Jets linebackers were recognizing Patriots’ plays

In the locker room following the New England Patriots’ 26-3 win over the Indianapolis Colts, several offensive players spoke about linebacker Shaquille Leonard calling out the team’s plays before the snap.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick confirmed he saw the same thing, while also taking note of it against New York Jets linebacker C.J. Mosley in Week 8.

“Yeah, we definitely want to prevent that,” Belichick said. “I thought there were two or three plays for sure that Leonard really got a big jump on and stopped us basically on those plays. Mosley got a couple of those a couple weeks ago in the Jets game. It almost looked like he heard the play in the huddle, he was on it so fast and Leonard had a couple like that, too.

“Whether that’s something we were giving away or something he anticipated based on whatever the keys were that he might’ve picked up, we certainly want to try to prevent that. I thought Leonard for sure did it and Mosley I thought had a couple plays like that as well.”

Belichick went on to add that sometimes that’s just what quality players such as Mosley and Leonard are able to do.

“That’s what good defensive players do,” he explained. “They anticipate things and are able to sometimes get a read on what they think is going to happen. They’re not always right, but sometimes they are and can certainly make you look bad offensively. As an offense, you always want to be balanced and try not to give things away to the point where you don’t have something complimentary that goes with them. That’s kind of the game within the game there.”

New England currently cannot afford to make things more difficult for themselves on the offensive side of the ball. Against the Jets and Colts the past two weeks, they’ve piled up just 491 yards of total offense and two touchdowns.

Belichick noted that if team’s are keying in on their signals, the Patriots offense has to find a way to use it against them.

“Obviously, if a player or team is stopping one thing, if you have something complimentary to go to then you can offset that,” he said. “We certainly had that situation come up as well to where we were able to take advantage of a player thinking he knew what the play was or the defense trying to play a certain play, but not defend another play. You have to kind of strike that balance. Yeah, that’s what it looked like to me, too.”