Jack Jones drew more attention to himself Thursday, and not in a good way.
The New England Patriots cornerback walked off the field during an 11-on-11 session of the team's training camp practice outside Gillette Stadium, per multiple reports. According to our Phil Perry, Jones seemed "upset" after breaking up a pass intended for wide receiver Kendrick Bourne and headed to the locker room shortly after.
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Defensive backs Shaun Wade and Jabrill Peppers both spoke with Jones as he exited the field, while cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino also had a brief chat with the 25-year-old cornerback.
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Jones returned to the practice field in full pads about 20 minutes later, per Perry and Tom E. Curran, but didn't participate in any more drills. He spoke with Patriots director of player personnel Matt Groh as well as defensive back Jalen Mills but otherwise kept to himself.
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It's unclear what exactly led to Jones' abrupt departure, and his return to practice later suggests it wasn't injury-related and that he may not have been ejected from the session. As Perry and Curran noted in their post-practice video breakdown, however, Jones' exit Thursday still isn't a great sign for a player who has a court date set for Aug. 18 following an arrest on weapons charges in June when he attempted to bring two unlicensed firearms through security at Logan Airport.
"He's an important player for them," Perry said. "You have to be on your P's and Q's as much as you can given what he's facing. If you're the team, how do you react to what you saw today?"
"Is he checked in?" Curran added. "If this is aberration, then you just say, 'What happened today? You good?' If it's not an aberration, then you have to look at it through a different prism and make decisions about, 'OK how much can we depend on (someone who's) a really good player for us potentially, and how do we reach him?' Or how do we say, 'OK, throw up the white flag?'"
Check out Curran and Perry's full breakdown of Jones' camp exit and more in the Patriots Training Camp Central video below.
