The New England Patriots benched Mac Jones for the third time this season in their 10-6 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, casting further doubt on his future with the team. Ezekiel Elliott remained relatively mum about the situation.

The Patriots running back didn't give much of an answer when asked if he was surprised by Jones' benching after the quarterback threw a critical interception on the team's penultimate drive of the game.

“I would say I don't know,” Elliott replied. “I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.”

There was one thing that Elliott was a bit more sure of though: the Patriots' ground game. New England ran for 167 yards, with Rhamondre Stevenson going for 88 rushing yards as Elliott added 54.

When he was asked if the Patriots could benefit from a change at quarterback, Elliott didn't give a take but seemed to imply that they could benefit from running the ball more.

“I don't know. I think today we showed how good of a run game we have, and I think that we have two really good running backs,” Elliott said. “And I think that our O-line is great in the run game, and they showed that today. 
 I think we could run it more. But to do that, we got to take care of the football. We have to eliminate the penalties so we don't have long distances. But the more we put ourselves in position to run the football, the better off this offense will be.”

The Patriots opened Sunday's game by heavily featuring the ground attack, running the ball seven times on their 13-play opening drive. But they went away from it for a good portion of the rest of the first half before running the ball on their first six plays of the second half.

Of course, as Elliott alluded to, it's tougher to run the ball in moments where you're either trailing or are several yards away from the first-down marker. Jones was sacked five times in the first half on Sunday and he threw his league-leading 10th interception on their penultimate drive of the game, which ended his day.

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Ezekiel Elliott iterates confidence in Bill Belichick despite Patriots' skid. 

Sunday's loss dropped the Patriots to 2-8 on the season, which will certainly fuel further speculation and rumors about Belichick's future in New England. As there were rumors of him possibly losing his job if the team lost Sunday's game, Elliott defended the coach who took a chance on him when the Patriots signed him during training camp.

“I think Coach Belichick has plenty of respect in this locker room,” Elliott said when asked if Belichick's message in the locker room was still being received well. “Just a lot of things haven't gone our way. We haven't executed the best. We haven't taken care of the football the best. We haven't played sound enough. We haven't played disciplined enough. We have too many penalties. We just gotta find a way to go out there and play better football.”