By ROBERT LEE
Journal Sports Writer

FOXBORO -- Adalius Thomas had started every game this season and all but one since joining the Patriots in 2007 as the highest-priced free agent in the Belichick Era, but he was a healthy scratch in Sunday's 59-0 triumph over the Tennessee Titans.

In fact, he was not even in the stadium.

So Patriots coach Bill Belichick, director of player personnel, Nick Caserio, and defensive coordinator Dean Pees were all bombarded with questions Monday afternoon, with inquiring minds wanting to know, why wasn't the versatile outside linebacker active for the game?

Was he hurt?

Are the Patriots unhappy with the way he's played this year?

Is he going to be traded?

All three had the same answer - having Thomas in the lineup did not give the Patriots the best chance to win on Sunday.

Instead, the Patriots relied on Rob Ninkovich (4 defensive tackles, 2 special teams tackles), Tully Banta-Cain (3 solo tackles), Pierre Woods (3 defensive tackles, 1 special teams tackle), and Derrick Burgess to be their main outside linebackers.

"It was a combination of all of the things on defense, special teams and third down and when you look what the roles for those players were on all four downs...they each contributed in one and maybe two areas pretty strongly," Belichick said. "Every player has value and if we could have brought more than 45 players to the game we would have and I'm sure they all would have played. It's just we had to select the one's who we felt would have the bigger role in the game and so that's what we did."

"There's only so many players that you can take to the game and so in the end, we'll take the players that we feel can help us win the game and best give us the opportunity," Caserio said. "You'd like to bring everybody...but you only have so many spots on the roster so [Belichick] makes those decisions in the end."

The word out of Foxboro is that Thomas, who was leading the Patriots in sacks last season with five before breaking his arm in the ninth game, is nursing an elbow injury, but it was not bad enough to keep him out of the game.

So what does this mean for Thomas' future with the Patriots?

"I don't know," Belichick said. "It was one game. We'll evaluate it this coming week against Tampa like we always do. This week is different from last week.
"I think he's a good football player. He's versatile. He's made some big plays for us and he's done a lot of different jobs. We have a lot of confidence in him...I'm glad we have him. I think he can help us and I think he will help us."

The Patriots changed up their defense on Sunday, playing mostly out of the 3-4 alignment which could have led to the decision to go with Woods, Ninkovich, Burgess, and Banta-Cain instead of Thomas at the outside linebacker positions.

Next week could be different, said Pees, who liked what we saw out of Ninkovich, Banta-Cain, Woods and Burgess.

"They made some good plays," Pees said.