Report: Despite DV Charges Against Jabrill Peppers, the Patriots are 'Comfortable Enough' With His Situation to Bring Him Back

Here's a piece of free advice for all you young, aspiring bloggers out there. And believe me, it'll be worth every penny. If you want to last a long time in this brutal, dog-eat-dog space, the one thing you don't want to ever do is weigh in with strong opinions on any sort of domestic dispute. Unless and until you've seen clear and compelling video of someone laying hands on a loved one - think Ray Rice in the elevator or Diddy in the hotel hallway - the smart move is to treat the whole matter like the radioactive core of a nuclear plant. Not even a hazmat suit and a Silkwood shower can protect you from the fallout if you're going to make assumptions and get it wrong. Unless it's truly someone close to you, as opposed to a really good athlete who might help your team win, just give the story a good leaving alone and let the process play out. 

That is why I didn't post about Jabrill Peppers getting charged with domestic violence back in late September. Not because he's a Patriots team captain and arguably one of their Top 5 players at the start of the season, but out of a sense of justice and a healthy dose of career preservation. We don't know the first thing about what happens in famous people's private lives. And to opine on it? That way lies madness.

Well since Peppers found himself in court and on the Commissioner's Exempt list, the silence has been deafening. Until now. Until this week, when the case finally reached a new phase:

Source - Jabrill Peppers was back at Patriots practice Tuesday. Coach Jerod Mayo indicated there’s a chance Peppers could play Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts, or at some point after the bye week.

With a safety room that’s taken it on the chin of late, the return of Peppers would seem like a godsend. ...

Peppers had been placed on the Commissioner’s Exempt List in October, two days after he was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, strangulation or suffocation, possession of a Class B substance (cocaine) and assault and battery on a household or family member stemming from a domestic dispute.  ...

[W]hy wouldn’t the Patriots hold off until the legal process played out? Why roll the dice that he won’t be convicted? ...

Are the Patriots that desperate, or do they know something we don’t?

The answer falls in line with the latter.

Peppers, who took questions from the media Thursday, indicated he had spoken with team owner Robert Kraft. While Mayo wouldn’t say definitively if their in-house investigation left the Patriots comfortable enough to bring him back, sources told MassLive that was indeed the case.

You have to admit, this is a hell of a risk for the Patriots to take unless they have very solid, actionable intelligence that the case against Peppers isn't going anywhere. If they bring him back - which de facto implies to their paying customers they're not buying tickets to cheer for an abusive asshole who deserves to be locked up - and he ends up getting convicted, they've got a PR disaster on their hands. 

Mr. Kraft is, after all, the same owner who made NFL history by being the first to renounce a draft pick before he'd ever even reported to the team. His name was Christian Peter, a DT who had been charged with assaulting his girlfriend while at Nebraska. This was in 1996, the same draft that caused the rift between the Krafts and Bill Parcells. And throwing away a 5th round pick on a moral principle didn't help their relationship one damned bit. More famously on his watch, the Pats released Aaron Hernandez long before his due process had even begun. And the Krafts spent hundreds of thousands to get his jersey off the streets, like some kind of an NFL merch gun buyback program. 

So for them to be willing to back Peppers at this point has to mean they've got good intel these charges aren't going to amount to anything. Their opinion; not mine. It certainly can't be because they think they have to have him. When your team is 3-9 and going nowhere, there's no incentive to stick your white collard/blue shirted neck out for one player unless you're 100% confident you're right to do so. 

As far as what Peppers' return means to his team, it's hard to overstate his impact right now. In the four games before the suspension, the defense he captains gave up an average of 99.25 rushing yards. In the first five games without him, that number shot up to 144.6. That might not be all because of him; but when you're the hybrid LB/box safety in the Pats base Big Nickel defense, it's certainly a factor. And in coverage, he gave up a miniscule passer rating when targeted of 22.6, lowest on the team among anyone with more than five coverage snaps. And his Pro Football Focus defensive grade of 82.9 is highest by anyone with more than eight total snaps. 

So yeah, Pepper counts for a lot. And getting him back into the safety mix is critical if this defense is going to be even a shadowy, grainy, likeness of the Top 10 unit it was last year. Put him in there behind Christian Barmore, who was up to 35 snaps Sunday, and we've got at least the bare minimum of a defense capable of winning a game again. 

So take note, kids. This is how you walk through the minefield of a DV blog. All I want is for justice to be done in the courts. And for the Patriots to look capable of winning a game again. If Jabrill Peppers can get both, we all win.