Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady has spent the past several weeks rehabbing from knee surgery. While Bucs coach Bruce Arians described the procedure as "minor" earlier this offseason, Brady indicated the opposite this week during an appearance on the Hodinkee podcast.
"I had a pretty serious knee surgery this offseason, which is the first surgery I've had in about 12 years," Brady said, per a transcription by the Tampa Bay Times. "I was really interested to see how it was going to go, because last year it just took a lot. Every week I was kind of tending to my knee, and I thought I would love to see a season where I can focus on some other strength stuff that I want to do, some other technique stuff where I'm not just focused on protecting my knee all the time.
"So It's been pretty intense this offseason from that standpoint, because it's been six and a half weeks that I've been dealing with the rehab process. The season went pretty long, obviously into February. It's just now that I'm starting to feel like the offseason is happening. And I'm going to blink my eyes and the offseason is going to be over."
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It's worth noting that Brady was seen at the Buccaneers' victory parade wearing a sleeve on his knee, and that Ben Volin of the Boston Globe stated soon after that Brady needed "more than a little clean-up" on that knee.
Re: Brady's injured left knee, a source told me that he needs more than just a little clean-up. "When it comes out, all this does is build his legend even greater." pic.twitter.com/ri6wm3hXAF
— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) February 11, 2021
It's interesting that Brady mentioned he was dealing with this knee injury "every week," because he was not listed on the Bucs' injury report at all during the 2020 regular season or playoffs. League rules require that, "If any player has a significant or noteworthy injury, it must be listed on the practice report, even if he fully participates in practice and the team expects that he will play in the team's next game."
An injury that required a "pretty serious" offseason surgery and that Brady apparently dealt with for some period of weeks prior to the Super Bowl would almost certainly qualify as a "significant or noteworthy" injury, so it'll be interesting to watch whether or not the NFL levies some sort of punishment against the Buccaneers in the wake of Brady's admission.