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Buccaneers' Tom Brady Calls His Offseason Surgery on Knee Injury 'Pretty Serious'
May 14, 2021
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady described the knee surgery he underwent following the team's Super Bowl LV win over the Kansas City Chiefs as "pretty serious."
Brady discussed how the recovery has impacted his offseason during an appearance on Monday's episode of Hodinkee Radio (via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times):
"I had a pretty serious knee surgery this offseason, which is the first surgery I've had in about 12 years. 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."
Although the fact Brady underwent surgery was already known, he hadn't previously revealed the extent of the procedure.
In April, the 43-year-old told ESPN's Jenna Laine he was feeling "pretty good" and confirmed he expected to take part in June's mandatory minicamp.
"It's good progress," Brady said. "It's rehab. None of that is fun, but looking forward to getting back to real training and stuff, which is hopefully here pretty soon. ... I'm cool with it. It's just part of what you deal with. Things come up. You deal with them the best way you can, with the best opportunity to improve. I'm definitely feeling a lot better than I did six or seven weeks ago."
The seven-time Super Bowl champion didn't show any obvious physical impairment during the Bucs' playoff run, though being a traditional pocket passer makes it easier to overcome a knee injury.
Brady put together another strong statistical season in 2020, his first year with Tampa Bay after 20 years with the New England Patriots. He completed 65.7 percent of his throws for 4,633 yards with 40 touchdowns and 12 interceptions during the regular season.
The Buccaneers are primed to make a serious run at defending their title in large part because of the amount of talent around the three-time MVP.
Tampa added running back Giovani Bernard, one of the NFL's best pass-catchers out of the backfield, to a playmaker group that already featured Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, Scotty Miller, Rob Gronkowski, O.J. Howard, Cameron Brate, Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones II.
The only thing that could totally derail the repeat bid is a setback or separate injury for Brady since the group of reserves behind him—Blaine Gabbert, Ryan Griffin and rookie Kyle Trask—are either subpar or unproven options.
For now, there's nothing to suggest Brady won't be leading the offense when the Bucs kick off the regular season Sept. 9 when they host the Dallas Cowboys.