Buccaneers' Tom Brady Happy with Progress in Recovery from Surgery on Knee Injury
June 9, 2021
Tampa Bay Buccaneers star Tom Brady is pleased with how his recovery from offseason knee surgery has progressed.
"I worked really hard at trying to get back to full speed to get what I need to do to begin to improve ... and I feel like I'm there," he said Wednesday.
Brady also said how the procedure should allow him to feel a lot better physically during the 2021 season:
Grace Remington @GraceRemiWTSPTom Brady didn't give too many deets on the knee: "I never like to talk about injuries. I'm a little bit old school in that way."<br><br>"I had to spend a lot of time tending to that injury... I'll be able to do some different things this year that I wasn't able to do last year." #Bucs
The 43-year-old described the surgery as "pretty serious" on Hodinkee Radio last month (via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times). He added that it was the first time he had gone under the knife in about 12 years.
"I was really interested to see how it was going to go, because last year it just took a lot," he said. "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."
The extent to which his knee was bothering him is somewhat surprising considering he threw for 4,633 yards, 40 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in his first season with the Bucs.
Head coach Bruce Arians told reporters Brady "looked fine" as Tampa Bay completed its first day of minicamp Tuesday.
"I had to pull him out a couple [times]," Arians said. "That first period, I said, 'OK, you can have four [reps].' And he kept begging to go back in. But the only thing I didn't want him in was the blitz period, where some guys might get around him too quick."
Beyond being in a better place physically, Brady should benefit from having a traditional offseason to ramp up before Week 1, along with the continuity he has already established. The Bucs offense is largely the same as it was in 2020, with Leonard Fournette, Antonio Brown, Chris Godwin and Rob Gronkowski all re-signing.
Because of his age, it's a little tougher to predict Brady will pick up from where he left off a season ago. But all of the signs point to another strong campaign for the future Hall of Famer.