Belichick didn’t bench Stevan Ridley to send him a message
By Mike Dyce
The New England Patriots made running back Stevan Ridley a healthy scratch and put him on the inactive list. Ridley has fumbled four times this season in 135 carries. That led some to speculating that head coach Bill Belichick was sending Ridley a message but he denied that.
“If I have a message to send to somebody, I’ll just sit down and talk to them and tell them what it is,” Belichick said, via the team’s site. “I can have a conversation and do have a conversation with anybody on the team that I need to have a conversation with. That’s not a problem. There’s no sending a message. You sit down and talk to somebody man-to-man and talk about the situation so that we’re all on the same page as to whatever it happens to be and what the direction is going forward. That’s easy. There’s not sending a message. You just have a conversation with somebody. This isn’t cryptic. We’re just trying to win a football game, that’s all.”
“The inactive players every week are based on, in part injuries and ultimately what we feel like for that particular game is the best decision for the football team in that game to try to win,” Belichick said. “Along with every other decision on the team that I make, it’s made with what gives our team, in our opinion, the best opportunity to win on Sundays. That’s what all decisions are based on.”