The Patriots managed to escape Sunday night’s game against the Chargers mostly healthy, but one player’s status may be in question heading into this week’s Divisional round game against the Texans.
Cornerback Christian Gonzalez got banged up early in the fourth quarter after making a tackle, with Gonzalez staying down for a few moments before getting back up.
He initially waved off needing to come out of the game, but he was later spotted being taken into the blue medical tent and didn’t return.
Head coach Mike Vrabel said on Monday during his press conference that right now, Gonzalez is going through the process of being evaluated and is in the concussion protocol, but wouldn’t say much more than that.
“Gonzo continues to play at a high level. Those are the expectations that he has for himself and that we have for him,” said Vrabel. “I would say that he would be in the protocol. How long that lasts? I don’t know. But when you don’t return to the game, when they won’t let you go back in the game, that would put him in the protocol. So wherever that goes, that goes.”
Losing Gonzalez for any length of time in the postseason would be tough, especially since Carlton Davis also got nicked up on Sunday night. For the Patriots to have to go into their upcoming match-up against Houston, potentially without their two top corners being healthy, would be challenging.
For now, they’ll have to see how things play out this week. Vrabel seemed fairly optimistic, while also praising Gonzalez for his work this season, which he said hasn’t been easy.
“We appreciate what he’s done and his willingness to line up different places. That’s not quite as easy as ‘We’ve been through this,’ but different coverages and locations and motions and things like that. So he’s handled that all really well, and hopefully we’ll get him back.”
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
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