Wilhite not pressing in new role for Pats

Ashley Lelie, the veteran wide receiver, never turned to look for the ball. He had a rookie cornerback running step-for-step with him into the end zone; there was nowhere for his quarterback to throw the ball over the top.

And when the throw sailed short, intentionally or not, Lelie never turned to look for it. It was the rookie cornerback – a rookie cornerback who had just three interceptions in three seasons of college football – who turned to look for it. It was the rookie cornerback who went up and snatched it out of the air.

“Being a corner, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t waiting for my first pick,” Jonathan Wilhite said Wednesday, back at Gillette Stadium. “I only had (three) in college, so to have my first one my rookie year in the NFL, it’s a blessing, man. I look forward to many more.”

Wilhite had played three seasons of press coverage at Auburn; he spent most of his career jamming wide receivers at the line of scrimmage and trying to throw them off their route. He almost never started a snap six yards off the line of scrimmage, the way he did on this particular second-quarter play against Lelie.

That meant he rarely got a chance to look for the football. It normally was enough to stay step-for-step with the wide receiver and just to get his hands in the way. (He did plenty of that; he knocked down 14 passes in his career at Auburn.)

“It was a way different game plan,” he said. “We pressed every play – everything, we pressed it, so I didn’t get to look at the ball a lot or see the ball a lot or read the quarterback. …

“It’s been a lot different, being able to read the quarterback and play off sometimes and press sometimes, switch-ups and different things you can bring if you can read the quarterback. It makes you a better player, being two- or three-dimensional.”

He didn’t get it right away. It took some time.

He wasn’t even totally prepared after rookie camp and training camp and four preseason games; he still felt like he was on shaky ground when the season began.

“I felt like I really started understanding more toward the middle of the season,” he said, “understanding the game and learning how to be a professional and studying more game film on your own and knowing your opponent.”

He began the season, of course, playing mostly special teams. But injuries have decimated the Patriots’ secondary this season – safety Rodney Harrison and cornerbacks Terrence Wheatley and Jason Webster all have landed on injured reserve.

Veteran cornerback Deltha O’Neal has stayed healthy but been shaky; the Steelers beat him twice for touchdowns in November.

Enter Wilhite, who made his first career start at Seattle two weeks ago.

“He’s worked hard at it,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “He’s improved all year. He was a very good player coming out of college. … Fundamentally, he was probably ahead of most players that I’ve coached coming out of college. He had a great college coaching background, so technique-wise he was pretty refined in relative terms.”

Said wide receiver Jabar Gaffney, “He’s grown a lot mentally. As far as physically, he had the tools. It’s just about getting in the right mind for understanding the game, and he’s doing a pretty good job.”

But Wilhite still had to figure out the scheme – and he still had to get on the field enough that he could get comfortable playing within that scheme. It didn’t help when he found himself under the weather – weather that wasn’t at all what he was used to.

“I’ve been in the South all my life,” he said with a wry smile. “I’ve been drinking a lot of orange juice and taking calcium pills, Vitamin C pills, trying to avoid things like that.”

But he was healthy enough to make the start against Seattle and healthy enough to make another one on Sunday against Oakland. And he was healthy enough to make the interception that kept the Raiders from pulling within two touchdowns just before halftime.

He took the football with him off the field, of course. Since then, though, it seems to have disappeared. He watched it all the way into his hands during the game on Sunday; he just hasn’t seen it since.

“It’s somewhere; they were supposed to get it to me,” he said, glancing around the locker room. “I’ve got it, though.”

Once he gets it again, though, don’t expect him to let it out of his sight.