As the New England Patriots' training camp went under way last Thursday July 30, the media has been paying close attention to Tom Brady's left knee.
The Patriots' All-Pro quarterback suffered an MCL and ACL injury on his left knee in the very first game of the 2008 season against the Kansas City Chiefs. Brady suffered a blow to his left knee from Chiefs' safety Bernard Pollard during the first quarter of the NFL season.
Tom Brady has had a total of four surgeries on his left knee over the past year. Two of those have been to repair the MCL and ACL and the other two were to clean up the knee which had suffered an infection from the previous surgeries. So Brady had a very eventful and surgical year.
Brady met and spoke with the media after the first session of day one of training camp and talked about the under coming pre-season, the NFL season, and of course his left knee.
Brady did not play one pre-season game last year due to him recoverving from a right foot injury that he had suffered in the previous AFC Championship game against the San Diego Chargers.
The media questioned Brady if he would play in the pre-season, “Yeah, I think I’ll play,’’ Brady said. “Last year, it wasn’t like I wasn’t supposed to play. I would have loved to have played, but some circumstances came up where I couldn’t."
Brady also stressed the significance of playing in the pre-season, “I think it’s really important for a quarterback to be out there playing. If you’re the leader of the offense, you have to be out there leading in the preseason and the practices. I’m excited for those games, because I think we can make improvements in those games.’’
As the media kept on discussing Brady's knee, he got a little irritated and stated how his focus is on this season, “That was last season. This is this season. I don’t think about it. I think it’s been a great learning experience for me, and I’m using that as a positive. Hopefully, I can go out this year and be a great quarterback for this team.’’
I believe that Tom Brady will perform at a high level this year and be a "great quarterback" for the New England Patriots. They have added to their already tremendous receiving core with Joey Galloway, and they added a key veteran to their running game, Fred Taylor.
I'm expecting that Brady should win the Come-back Player of the Year Award while throwing over 35 touchdowns and leading New England to tops of the AFC East and the AFC.
