

The Patriots appear to have lost Kevin Faulk to an ACL injury. (PHOTO:Icon/SMI)

Patriots runningback Kevin Faulk took quite a shot which knocked him out of the game during the fourth quarter of Sunday's 28-14 loss to the New York Jets, and apparently two days later the news isn't good.Ian Rapoport of The Boston Herald reported on Tuesday that Faulk has suffered a torn ACL , which will likely sideline him for quite some time.As of Tuesday the team has yet to announce a roster move, but one would have to believe the prognosis for the 34-year old veteran can't be very good. At Faulk's age while anything is possible, it's asking a lot for him to recover in time to come back before the end of the season.Even Wes Welker, who was injured back on January 3rd of this year, needed six months to get back in time to be healthy enough for contact. Welker started training camp on the active PUP list at the start of training camp and it took a while before he was finally ready to start taking hits.To make matters worse Welker's injury happened on a non-contact play. Faulk was hit hard as he had his legs swept out from underneath him, so while we don't know officially the severity of his injury - it definitely didn't look good.Needless to say even with a "best case scenario" outlook - it's doubtful that Faulk is going to be able to exceed the miracle return we saw from Welker.Sadly it looks like New England just took a big blow offensively as one would have to believe he's likely lost for 2010. At this point all we can hope for at his age is that he's able to come back and perform at a high level next season.