Bill Belichick wanted his team to be more physical against the Jets on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
“We tried to play physical in all three areas,” Belichick said after the Patriots dominated the Jets 27-13 in a penalty-plagued game.
You can add another area as well.
When Patriots wide receiver/running back Cordarrelle Patterson was tackled and stuck on the bottom of the pile, TV cameras caught Patterson grabbing Jets defensive lineman Henry Anderson in a most sensitive area, and he did not let go, causing Anderson to flip backward off Patterson.
When shown the video in the Patriots locker room after the game, Patterson smiled and did not sidestep the questionable play and gave this reasoning for such a grab on his 1-yard gain with 11:25 left in the game.
“The man was all in my face, trying to put his s–t in my face,” Patterson told several reporters. “I tried to move him out of there.”
That is life at the bottom of the pile in the NFL.
Asked by The Post if he took it as a sign of disrespect, Patterson answered: “I’m a grown man. I don’t need anybody’s ass and d–k and balls in my face, man.”
With that, he was out the door, well ahead of many of his victorious teammates.
The Jets’ Anderson said of the squeezing sequence: “Somebody else pushed me — maybe [Josh] Gordon — and I was flopping around trying to draw a flag.”
Asked specifically about Patterson’s holding penalty, Anderson said, “I didn’t realize that. I didn’t feel it. It didn’t hurt because I could have noticed it if it hurt. I was tackling in a weird position and kind of rolled over him, and kind of tried to … if he’s in a weird position and he’s on his back and I’m on top of him, I’m going to kind of get up slow and try to … you do certain stuff like that throughout the game, little things like that here and there. Little stuff like that happens all the time. A lot of stuff you’d have to have a camera right on to see.”
Anderson’s fiancee, Saryn Rorie took issue on Twitter with Patterson’s actions.
“Ummmmm Henry is mine…….,” she wrote in post that included a video of the play.