WBZ Interview with Patriots QB Ryan Mallett

WBZ's Steve Burton and Scott Zolak caught up with Ryan Mallett following Thursday night's game. Here's a transcript of that interview:

BURTON: Are you glad the preseason's over? You're probably not because it gives you a chance to play, right?

"It was a good experience, especially after my first preseason to my second preseason and gaining some more experience and feeling more comfortable. But now it's go prepare like I'm the starter every day just in case my number's called."

BURTON: What was the competition like going between you and Brian Hoyer?

"We're good friends. It was a friendly competition, but we're both competitors so we were both trying to get after it. It's not our call about what happens so we'll just live with what's being told to us."

BURTON: Do you know where you stand right now? Do you know that you're officially the number two guy?

"I do not."

BURTON: OK, when will you know that, or will you ever know that?

"I don't know, [laughs] you've got to ask Bill [Belichick]."

ZOLAK: You've got the preseason and the job for preseason is when you play as a back-up, I did it for 9-years so I know [what that's like] [laughs]. You want to get better game-to-game and if you've seen yourself - go back to that New Orleans game and then of course you didn't see a lot of time, then you get two starts under your belt - does it feel good to get out there and move around? What have you got to work on most as a player right now in your development?

"Going up through the preseason starting with the Saints, I felt like I made a couple strides here and there but I feel like I still have a lot of work on my all around game - defensive terminology, what we're doing, what we're trying to do, and that's what I'm going to work on and get ready to go."

BURTON: the hardest thing out there for you? Reading defenses? Is it confusing?

"It's fun. No, I wouldn't say it's confusing or hard. I mean, it's going out there, it's a lot of competition - we're in the NFL - so that's the hardest part, the competition. But what I've got to do is just go to the film room, trying to get as better as I can while looking at the film."

ZOLAK: And the tough thing is absorbing it when you're sitting there watching it, and let's face it, you're out there with a bunch of different guys whether it's practice, whether you're running stuff off cards, so it's not like you're the one guy and you get timing down with just strictly three guys who you're routinely repped at, so it does make it more difficult. There's a lot of things people don't see besides what they watch in preseason like practice, and I think coach has kind of been supportive of you in that.

"Yeah, I mean, what you've got to do is just stay extra, you know that. Get timing with guys who might not get timing with during practice, you've got to get it after and just put in extra work so you've got good chemistry with everybody that's going to be on the field with you."

ZOLAK: Feel you're in a good spot here though?

"You know, I feel O.K.. There's a lot of things I would like to go back and do again if I could, but I think every player would say that."

BURTON: The scouting report on you is that you have a gun for an arm, I mean you just rifle it. Do you have to know when to rifle it and when to throw touch passes? Because I mean even coming out of the backfield, these guys, I mean they're holding their hands - their hands are burning catching your balls?

"Yeah, I mean you've got to know when to tone it down and when to use it. If you have to stick it in a tight window you might have to use it, but sometimes, just tone it down a little bit and just try to get it to the guys so they can make a play."

Just don't kill anybody willl you?

"[Laughs] All right."