James White Emotionally Opens Up About Missing Jets Game For Birth Of A Son

The New England Patriots defeated the New York Jets, but James White wasn’t there. He was supporting the team from a hospital room. The player was with his sleeping baby, Xzavier, and he didn’t want to wake him up.

“It’s definitely an exciting moment in life,” the veteran running back and team co-captain said Wednesday. “I always wanted to be a dad. Your wife goes through a lot giving birth to a kid, so it’s an exciting moment for the both of us.

“And then for us to be able to watch the game with him being there, even though he was asleep and everything, it was a great experience, and I’m happy those guys went out and played well and got a big division win.”

Brandon Bolden replaced White and caught two passes for 21 yards.

“It was definitely weird,” White said. “It felt like I wasn’t a part of the team for a second. But those guys, they went out and played well. Rex played a lot, Brandon played a lot, Sony (Michel) and those guys did a great job. Like I said, it was a big division win.”

Head coach Bill Belichick supported White’s request to be with his wife during the game.

“Like you’ve seen, we’ve had quite a few guys have babies during this season, so they’ve been supportive,” White said. “Obviously, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so he’s let our guys experience it.”

“I’ve coached for quite a while as a head coach in two different organizations,” the coach said in a conference call earlier this week. “I don’t think that’s ever been an issue. I’ve always talked about it with the player. It’s not like it’s a surprise. It’s something that there’s certainly a lead-up period to. (We) communicate about it, and depending on the time, the situation, the circumstances and all that, you take everything into consideration. Everybody wants to do what’s best, and we arrive at that conclusion.

“Again, there are a lot of variables on that — what the individual’s situation is with the birth, where the game is, so forth and so on. There’s a lot of things that could come into play. I think it’s just good communication and trying to find out as much information as you can. You never have all of it. Sometimes you have to call an audible, but you figure it out, and then just everybody has the best interest of everything that’s involved and try to make a good decision on that.”