After nearly a week of widespread speculation about Tom Brady’s thumb injury that ranged from minor flesh wound to near-amputation, we finally got to see the quarterback in action. He sailed a few passes early - was that a result of the injury or just part of a closely contested game? He led his team back from a 20-10 deficit to win the AFC title. Thumb seemed okay. After the game, Brady addressed his injury in more detail, admitting that, on Wednesday, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to play Sunday.
We saw photos of his laceration, no longer covered by Kinesiotape, for the first time.
A look at the cut on Tom Brady's hand pic.twitter.com/OhOHCZAr3C
— Bleacher Report NFL (@BR_NFL) January 22, 2018
The morning after the game, Brady went on WEEI for his weekly interview and described the moment of the injury:
We ran into each other and my thumb just got bent back. It wasn’t his helmet or anything. Just kind of got bent back. That is why I felt it was a lot worse. The doctors went in and checked it out and we did things just to kind of check on everything and fortunately, there wasn’t any damage that normally comes associated with that. I think we were very lucky.
Inside that X-ray room [Brady] noted that the skin hadn’t been sliced open; rather it appeared to have pinched until it ruptured. He asked one of the Patriots’ doctors, “How does the skin split like that?”
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve never seen this before,” one physician told him, adding that the wrist usually absorbs the kind of impact he took, often leading to dislocation.