Patriots offensive lineman Matt Light was ruled out of Saturday's game against Miami, with the decision apparently coming after Light initially came onto the field during warmups and the training staff didn't like what they saw.
 Matt Light was scratched just before Saturday's game. (FILE:Icon/SMI) |
That left them in tough shape so close to game time, forcing them to move Logan Mankins to left tackle and Donald Thomas to left guard to start the game.
Bill Belichick, who normally doesn't get too descriptive when it comes to injury situations, actually told the media after the game that the decision came because the veteran wasn't able to push off of his ankle.
"Matt's ankle was … he just wasn't able to push off on it, so we were scrambling around there," explained Belichick. "And then Logan [Mankins] played a few plays and then he went out, so we had to take what was left."
Belichick said the decision to move Mankins to the left tackle spot once Light was a scratch was due to their game plan, which left them feeling like that would be where he would be the most effective.
"Because of the game plan and everything that we were doing, we thought it was the best thing to do," said Belichick on the reason to move him there. "But then that didn't last long. It knocked us out of some other personnel groupings and we got down to the end of the game and we didn't have our goal-line group and things like that, so we had to try to run the ball.
"We were down there on the goal line with multiple receivers in the game, things like that. But we just didn't have our big people groupings."
Mankins would ultimately get knocked out of the game early on, leaving the Patriots down two veterans against what ended up being a tenacious Miami defense in the first half.
Brady admitted that not having both of those two players hurt them, but he was glad to see his team fight back and he felt that in the end, that was the reason they won the game.
"Yeah. I think that was," said Brady when asked if it was tough to adjust with the injuries. "To lose Matt [Light] an hour and a half before the game and then to lose Logan [Mankins] the first or second series of the game, a lot of guys really stepped in and played hard, played for 60 minutes. I think that's what it took today."
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