Patriots back-up quarterback Ryan Mallett got knocked out of Friday Night's Game.
Most Patriots fans never want to think about the possibility of quarterback Tom Brady being knocked from a game, and always hope that should the unthinkable happen that Ryan Mallett will be able to be an adequate fill in until he's able to return.
On Friday night fans instead saw Mallett take a tough shot in the chest toward the end of the first half, leaving him sprawled out on the ground before eventually being escorted off the field.
The team officially listed it as a "head injury" following the play and Mallett didn't return, but he later told Ben Volin of the Boston Globe that he got hit in the chest and that his injury doesn't appear to be serious. That's clearly good news for fans hoping he'll be ready to back up Brady heading into the regular season.
Before leaving the game Mallett was shaky at best, finishing 9-of-18 (50%) for 97 yards. It wasn't a great performance by any means, but after the game head coach Bill Belichick said he was pleased with what he saw from his quarterbacks.
"I thought he did a solid job in there," said Belichick. "I thought all of our quarterbacks were productive. We got production from a lot of guys. It's not perfect out there by anybody, we've definitely got things we've got to work on, but I thought we did enough good things to move the ball fairly consistently and be balanced."
From there he was replaced by Tim Tebow, who finished out the contest and didn't fare much better. Tebow was erratic and struggled with getting any type of consistency going offensively. He finished 4-of-12 for 55 yards and was sacked 3 times.
Belichick said that despite Mallett's early exit, Tebow's entrance into the game happened at about the point he had planned on putting him in anyway.
"No, I think that worked out about that way," said Belichick. "I think we ran like 40 something plays in the first half so based on the number of plays we ran, then we would have put Tim in the 3rd quarter anyway."
Mallett will now get a couple of days to recuperate as the team doesn't have another public practice session until Monday afternoon.
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