FOXBOROUGH, Mass — The New England Patriots entered Sunday's game against the Las Vegas Raiders with only three cornerbacks healthy.
Head coach Mike Vrabel announced on Friday that the team had already ruled out starting cornerbacks Christian Gonzalez and Carlton Davis, as well as rookies Channing Canada and Karon Prunty. That left Charles Woods, who had been dealing with a shoulder injury throughout the week, along with Marcus Jones and Kindle Vildor.
Specifically, for Vildor, he spent all summer with the team and made a case for a roster spot, but on cut-down day, he was released and re-signed to the practice squad. That's where he remained for the first four games of the season, being elevated for the first time in the win over the Buffalo
Bills. And then this week, he was officially signed to the 53-man roster.
His performance over the last two weeks has given the cornerback a lot of confidence.
"Definitely. It always feels good to stack days and stack games. So just want to continue to do that and take advantage of my opportunities," he told Patriots Wire. "It felt good to go out there. I mean, because we all love the game, we all want to be out there and help the team any way that we can. So it felt great to go out there and just take advantage of my opportunity.
"And we got the W ultimately, so felt amazing."
Vrabel was also asked about the veteran defender, saying that his performance is "exactly what we would expect."
"That’s why we had him in that position and had ability for him to be elevated or get signed and step in there and compete," Vrabel explained. "And nothing was perfect. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, but for him to understand what he has to do – great opportunistic hammer and turnover and punch out there. It’s the competitive spirit of some of these guys is really, truly special."
In the third quarter, Vildor saw his teammates surrounding Raiders tight end Brock Bowers, and he went over to get in on the fun. Seeing an opportunity to punch the ball out, he gave it his all.
"I saw him kind of break loose and then, some of my teammates were kind of already on," Vildor recalled. "So I'm just like, 'Shoot, I'm just going to go punch at the ball.' So I was glad it came out."
Vildor is just one example of many on the team stepping up when their name is called due to all the injuries.
"Even back in camp, I was doing an interview, and I was talking about the depth of our cornerback room," he said. "So I feel like whoever's in there, we can execute the game plan just like our top guys. We help each other day in and day out."
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This article originally appeared on Patriots Wire: Patriots CB turns opportunity into game-changing play vs. Raiders
