Here's What I Know About Tom Brady's Hand
The cause of the strain on Tom Brady’s throwing hand has been identified pic.twitter.com/BNJuwsXAdw
— Jerry Thornton (@jerrythornton1) January 17, 2018
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About two weeks ago I went on Barstool Radio and told Dave and Big Cat how I was trying to confirm something I’d heard: That Tom Brady broke his throwing hand weeks ago. I was getting this from someone who’s given me info before that turned out to be a hundred percent accurate. But being the responsible capital-J Journalist that I am, I couldn’t go with the broken hand story until I got confirmation from another source. This is Barstool Sports after all, not ESPN. We have standards.
And truth be told I haven’t been able to confirm the story. At least not in any way that involves someone saying “Yup! Brady sure did break his hand. Feel free to post that and tell everyone it came from me!” But here’s what we all know, feel free to connect the dots any way you want:
–Beginning with the Tampa game in Week 6, there was a noticeable drop off in his passing. Not Max Kellerman’s stupid “cliff,” but a decline. He completed 75 percent of his passes against Tampa and only 52 percent the next week against the Jets. After throwing two interceptions all of last year and none through the first four games, he threw picks in both of those games. He averaged 340 yards per game before the Bucs game, 261 after.
–For the some of the few times in his career, Brady was missing practices. When asked about it on his Westwood One radio appearance by Jim Gray he answered, “I think they have me listed as my Achilles.” And odd turn of a phrase for someone who is actually dealing with an actual Achilles injury.
–He’s been flexing, squeezing and checking out his throwing hand more than we’ve ever seen before.
–When he gets up off the ground, he’s been using his forearm instead of his hand.
–And now we hear he got hit in practice. On the World’s Most Important Hand. Which happens to be attached to a quarterback wearing a red no-contact jersey. And yet if you drive by the stadium, you don’t see the severed head of the player responsible spitted on a pike above the lighthouse, which I think would be the reasonable response if that really happened.
Again, I can’t say for sure he’s been playing with a broken hand. You’ll have to draw your own conclusions. But it would explain a lot. That purple-faced rage Brady directed at Josh McDaniels after he missed a throw, for example. What I can confirm is that he’s fine now. The reports that the medical staff checked him out and he’ll be good to go Sunday are accurate. And if he did have something wrong before, the bye week helped. That’s obvious by the dead-nuts accuracy with which he threw the ball against Tennessee and the bomb he aired out that went 65 yards in the air, one of the longest throws we’ve ever seen him make. And the one definite truth I don’t need any source to confirm is that even if Tom Brady’s hand was injured before, got injured Wednesday, is totally fine or gets amputated and he has to grow another mini-hand like a cull lobster, he’ll still be the best quarterback playing Sunday.