Matt Corral was pretty happy to get hit in his first true professional start.
Corral, who ghosted the New England Patriots during a brief-and-bizarre period with the team, was the starting quarterback for the UFL’s Birmingham Stallions this past weekend. A third-round pick in 2022, Corral only played in the preseason during his time in the NFL.
So when that first big contact came during Saturday’s game against the Arlington Renegades, Corral was happy to knock the rust off.
At Saturday’s postgame press conference, Stallions coach Skip Holtz said that Corral came up to him after running the back at the end of the first quarter. Birmingham had called a QB draw to get into the red zone. Holtz was ready to talk about the next play. But Corral wanted to talk about finally getting hit.
“He looked right at me and said, ‘God, I needed that,’” Holtz said. “I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘I needed that hit. I needed to be hit like that to be like, all right, now we’re playing football. It’s like I got to knock the rust off. I needed that hit. Bit my tongue. Tongue is bleeding. I need some water. I mean, I needed that just to say: Hey, let’s compete. Almost like I needed to get punched in the mouth.’”
Corral, who was a star quarterback at Ole Miss, went 12-of-21 passing for 201 yards in the season-opening win. Birmingham is in its first season in the UFL, the new league formed after a merger between the USFL and XFL.
The Patriots claimed Corral off of waivers following roster cuts last season. However, the quarterback never showed up to New England, resulting in him landing on the exempt/left team list.
“He’s on exempt status. I don’t have any comment on it,” Bill Belichick said about Corral’s status at the time. “That’s a personal matter.”
It wasn’t long after that the Patriots released Corral from the exempt list. However, the team chose to give Corral another shot and signed him to the practice squad. However, Corral reportedly arrived at the facility and had a “had a change of heart” about joining the team.
With the Corral experiment fully over, the Patriots went on to sign quarterback Will Grier.