Rob Ninkovich had to fill an unusual role yesterday on Herald Radio's The Rundown. Typically, coaches are the ones who have to defend the off-field choices of their players. But in the case of Matt Patricia and his infamous Roger Goodell clown shirt, Ninkovich had to defend his defensive coordinator.

“Everyone has the right to wear whatever shirt they want,” Ninkovich said. “Everyone has to wear a shirt, right? You can’t just wear no shirt. I think someone threw it at (Patricia), and he said, ‘All right, nice shirt, it’s cool, it’s blue, so I’ll put it on.’ I thought it was a funny shirt.” “I don’t think it’s a big deal,” Ninkovich said. “People want to take it how they want to take it. If you really think about it, everyone has to wear clothes, so you just put a shirt on, and you know, it is what it is. I think it’s a nice shirt. It’s blue. I love blue. My favorite color is blue.”

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Roger Goodell is reportedly still angry about the shirt, but the NFL Commissioner notoriously takes himself far too seriously. SB Nation reported that when Funny or Die asked him to appear on Between Two Ferns, he declined, implying that his position was more dignified than the Presidency of the United States, as Barack Obama had previously appeared on the show.

There might simply be enough bad blood between the Patriots and Goodell that he'd look for any excuse to be angry with the team. After the debacle of the DeflateGate investigation any stragglers that weren't already questioning Goodell's leadership changed course and attacked the commissioner for his failure.

But in general, it's still funny to see a player come to the defense of his coach just because it's so rare. Coaches so rarely make news for the sort of poor decisions players make every day, especially when they are employed by the Patriots. Patricia injected some much-needed personality onto the New England coaching staff, and Ninkovich believes that personality shouldn't go anywhere.