FOXBORO — Jabrill Peppers is glad to have his legal saga behind him as he enters his fourth Patriots season.
The veteran safety was acquitted of multiple assault charges in January, three months after he was arrested following a confrontation with a woman at his Braintree home.
“I’m just happy it’s over with and I get back to doing what I love to do,” Peppers said after Wednesday’s practice. “It was a learning experience. I learned a lot from it.”
Those were Peppers’ first public comments since the day a Quincy District Court jury cleared him of all charges.
“I had to be quiet for three months,” the 29-year-old told reporters after the verdict was read on Jan. 24. “This was all I could think about, and this is the first time in my life where football wasn’t the most important thing on my mind. I had to just sit through everyone pouring dirt on my name, everybody for the most part thinking that I actually did these things. … To me, crimes against children and women are the most egregious things that you can do. To be accused of that, it just hurt.”
Peppers was placed on the Commissioner’s Exempt list following his arrest and sat out the next eight games. He returned to the field in a Dec. 1 loss to Indianapolis but suffered what proved to be a season-ending hamstring injury in his second game back.
Now, Peppers is one of the longest-tenured members of a revamped New England defense that added Milton Williams, Carlton Davis, Robert Spillane, Harold Landry, Marcus Epps and others this offseason. He’s also the only original 2024 Patriots captain still on the roster (fellow safety Kyle Dugger and tight end Hunter Henry were promoted to captain status during the season).
“I just try to be the same guy every day,” Peppers said. “I love this game, it’s a big passion for me, and I just try to show that. Try to lead by example, do what the coaches say every time I’m supposed to do it so the young guys have something to follow, and keep the standard, the standard. That’s never going to change no matter who comes in here. The standard is the standard.”
