FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — When the Jets last saw Brandon Spikes, he was intercepting Mark Sanchez at the goal line to extinguish any last chance of drama in the Patriots’ 45-3 win here Dec. 6.
Thanks to an NFL suspension, that would be the last anybody except Bill Belichick and his coaches would see of the impressive rookie linebacker from Florida.
Spikes’ ban for performance-enhancing drugs ended just in time for Sunday’s playoff rematch with the Jets at Gillette Stadium, but Belichick sounded as if Gang Green might not see much of Spikes this weekend.
Asked how Spikes — one of the Patriots’ better run-stuffers — has looked since returning to practice last week, Belichick obviously was not pleased.
“Well, it looked like he hadn’t practiced in four weeks with the team, so he’s got a ways to go,” the coach sniped.
Belichick wasn’t much more complimentary in response to a follow-up question as to whether Spikes could shake off his rustiness in time for Sunday’s AFC divisional showdown.
“Well, we’ll see,” Belichick said. “We’ll see. Hopefully, he’ll be better this week than he was last week. He should be with the extra days of practice and just getting back into it, but we’ll see how it goes.”
A minimal contribution from the second-round pick could be good news for the Jets, who used a potent running game to keep Peyton Manning off the field last week and likely will try to do the same this week with Tom Brady.
A big hitter with range at 6-feet-2, 250 pounds, when he’s on his game, Spikes fortifies a run defense that is the strength of that overall unit for New England.
The Patriots finished the year 11th in the league against the run, and Spikes contributing double-digit tackles three times in his first six starts — including 10 stops in the Jets’ 28-14 win on Sept. 19 — from an inside linebacker spot was crucial to that.
But if Spikes is struggling to shake off the effects of a four-week enforced layoff, the Patriots don’t appear overly concerned. After all, if there is anything the former SEC standout has shown in his debut, it’s that he’s a quick learner.
“I think Brandon is a guy that is out there right now getting himself back in the groove of everything we’re doing here,” Patriots linebackers coach Matt Patricia said.
“Anyone that misses any type of work for four weeks comes back to it with a little bit of a degree of having to get adjusted, so I think that’s all to be expected.”
And it’s not as if the Patriots struggled in Spikes’ absence. They went 4-0 with him on the sidelines, holding opponents to 17 points combined in three lopsided victories.
Whether Spikes is ready to help this week or not, the Patriots don’t appear worried.
“We’re just going to truck along like we normally do, working hard every day, trying to get better each individual performance so that collectively as a whole we can get better,” Patricia said.
bhubbuch@nypost.com