New England Patriots DE Jabaal Sheard left home for game against 49ers

New England Patriots defensive end Jabaal Sheard did not travel with the team to the Bay Area and will not play in Sunday's game against the San Francisco 49ers.

Sheard, 27, was not on the team's injury report this week but was left home because of a performance-based decision, NFL Network's Rapoport reported Saturday.

Sheard posted on his Instagram page Friday night that he was attending the Boston Celtics-Golden State Warriors game after the team flight had taken off. The post has since been deleted.

Sheard, who is in the final season of a two-year, $11 million contract, was demoted as the starter for last Sunday night's 31-24 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. He played only 16 snaps in a backup role. He has 18 tackles and 3.5 sacks in nine games this season.

"That's the kind of question that I get every week," coach Bill Belichick said Tuesday when asked about Sheard's reduction in playing time. "If one player's numbers are a little bit higher and then others' are a little bit lower, it's basically the same question, but change the players' names around. There are a lot of things that go into our decision-making, game plans, matchups, the way the game unfolds, the type of game it is, which we could talk about a number of different things that fall into that category.

"In the end, we play the players that we feel like will give us the best opportunity in any given situation in a particular game, or the way that that game happens to unfold based on what our opponents are doing and how the game situations play out. Players that play, they play. The ones that are inactive are inactive. To a point, play time is based on performance, but it's also affected by situations and the type of game and type of matchups that that particular game, that are particular to the characteristics of that game."

Trey Flowers started in Sheard's place and had two sacks against the Seahawks.