Jabrill Peppers embodies toughness Patriots want on defense

Jabrill Peppers couldn’t sleep Friday night. The New England Patriots safety had fallen awkwardly at practice earlier that day but hadn’t thought much about it until bedtime. But at that point, he tossed and turned. Midnight became 2 a.m. which became 4. He stared at the clock and couldn’t get comfortable. His side hurt too much.

Finally, he gave up on shut-eye and got out of bed. He got two hours of sleep, he estimated. If that. He drove to Gillette Stadium, and by that point, he could barely walk.

Trainers brought him in for an MRI, which revealed an injury to a ligament that goes from the hip over the glute and into the quad and IT band. They explained to Peppers that it’s a stabilizer band of tissue, and that’s why he was having such a hard time walking.

“I was a little worried,” Peppers admitted.

He had already gone through all of the offseason workouts and grueling days of training camp with the Patriots defense. He had worked hard to earn the respect of his teammates and prove he’d show up for them. They had just voted him a captain for the first time, an honor that now comes with a “C” proudly stitched on the front of his jersey, a change new coach Jerod Mayo implemented. Peppers didn’t want a silly injury to keep him out of the team’s season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals.

“My leg would’ve had to fall off,” Peppers said of what it would’ve taken to miss the team’s 16-10 Week 1 win over the Bengals.

So he told the trainers to do “whatever you’ve got to do” to get him ready.

Got that hunger about us 😤 pic.twitter.com/hfzfFX4JOJ

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) September 10, 2024

A little over 24 hours later, Peppers was again a star on the back end of the New England defense, the safety partly responsible for taking away deep throws against an explosive Bengals offense. But his journey to playing in the game spoke to why Peppers has become a leader on this team and showcases the toughness with which Mayo wants them to play.

“(Peppers) really embodies everything that we want on the field,” Mayo said recently. “He’s selfless and he’s flying around all the time.”

To get Peppers ready for Sunday’s game, trainers wanted him to do some aerobic work. But the Patriots’ team hotel in Cincinnati didn’t have a pool. So the trainers called the Holiday Inn across the street and got permission to use their pool.

That’s why Peppers woke up at 7 a.m. Sunday morning, about an hour earlier than he usually does for a 1 p.m. kickoff. He walked over to the Holiday Inn with physical therapist Chris Dolan. Thankfully, there were no families with kids doing cannonballs that early.

“They definitely looked at us funny like, ‘Does this guy have a room here?’” Peppers said of the hotel receptionists. “But it all worked out.”

Three years ago, Peppers’ career was at a crossroads. He had torn his ACL during the 2021 season, a rough end to three seasons with the New York Giants. His play had dipped, and injury concerns were becoming a factor as he prepared to hit the free agent market the following spring. He had been a first-round pick out of Michigan in 2017, an electrifying defensive back who returned kicks and punts but didn’t seem to have a natural position. By free agency in the spring of 2022, he needed someone to take a chance on him.

The Patriots did, signing him to a modest one-year deal worth $2 million. He blossomed in Bill Belichick’s defense as the kind of hard-hitting throwback the coach liked.

After Devin McCourty’s retirement, Peppers took on a bigger role, both in terms of leadership in the locker room and on the back end of the defense. Last month, the Pats rewarded his progress with a three-year, $24 million extension, a far cry from the one-year deal he’d previously signed with New England.

This season, Peppers, now 28, has taken on an even bigger role, one more befitting his recent payday.

He has always been a vocal leader. When he first came to the Patriots, Mayo joked that Peppers’ energy and early morning yapping was a bit off-putting.

“I will be honest with you. When he first got here it was a little much for me,” Mayo said. “But I do appreciate it. He brings that passion, that energy each and every day. He’s one of our best communicators on defense.”

Peppers’ role on the field is an important one. He’s not the true deep safety McCourty once was for the Pats, but his versatility gives them options, especially next to the similarly versatile Kyle Dugger. Last Sunday, Peppers lined up 16 times in the box to help defend the run, 24 times as the deep safety and six times in the slot.

For the Patriots to continue pulling off this position-versatile, matchup-based defense, they need players like Peppers to keep embracing roles that play to their strengths. But they also need Peppers to keep excelling as a deep safety on obvious passing downs as they try to follow the league trend of limiting explosive plays, even if it means sacrificing easy 4- or 5-yard gains.

His role is an important one this weekend, too, with speedy DK Metcalf and the Seattle Seahawks coming to town for New England’s home opener. The game plan may not be that much different from what it was against the Bengals: Stop the run. Don’t let Metcalf beat you deep. Be good on third down.

Peppers can do all of that. Even if it takes some aerobics work in a Holiday Inn pool to get ready.