With 3:18 remaining before the half, Green plunged through the middle then grimaced in pain as he was dragged down. Trainers immediately rushed in and started examining Green's knee. Minutes must have passed like hours for head coach Mike Sherman and his staff. After a brief delay, Green was able to walk briskly off the field completely under his own power.
"Obviously I was concerned because they were working on the knee," Sherman said. "I was on the sideline and many, many thoughts go through your head at that time with a player of that magnitude."
Green's injury was announced as a bruised left kneecap, and he did not return to the game. He watched the rest in shorts and t-shirt from the bench, chatting it up with Favre and other resting starters. The ice on Green's knee was the only sign of the night's brush with disaster.
From the replay it appeared that Green's knee struck hard on the turf, and that after the initial tackle, another Jaguars defender jumped in to help stop Green and that defenders' knee struck Green's knee.
Two other starters left the game with injuries but both were able to return.
Linebacker Na'il diggs bruised his left wrist in the second quarter. Later Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, who recorded a sack and several pressures of Jacksonville starter Byron Leftwich, banged up his right elbow.