Tom Brady Dealing With Injury Ahead of Buccaneers' Thursday Night Game
Tom Brady is dealing with an injury ahead of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night. According to ESPN, Brady suffered a thumb injury in the first half of the Buccaneers' game against the Miami Dolphins this past Sunday after hitting his throwing hand on the helmet of the defender. He continued playing and finished the day with five touchdown passes. Brady told reporters this week that he will play on Thursday since he avoided serious damage to the thumb.
"I think it's just a little bit sore, but I expected it to be. But I think I should be fine for Thursday," Brady said. "There's no serious injury at all. It's more just discomfort, but I think that should be gone here in the next day or two. This is just, you play a game, you get hit -- you deal with bumps and bruises over the course of the year. It just so happens that this bruise is on my hand," Brady said. "I'm just trying to be preventative and precautious and be smart -- it's been less than 48 hours since it happened -- so it's not like it's had five or six days to do its thing. But I feel confident that I will go out there and do what I need to do."
For the most part, Brady has been able to keep himself relatively healthy. The only year where he missed a significant amount of time in his NFL career was in 2008 when he tore his ACL. Since the injury, Brady hasn't missed a start other than the four games he was suspended in 2016. Last year, Brady played with a significant knee injury which led to him having surgery throughout the season.
Losing Brady would be a blow to the Buccaneers as he's having one of the best starts in his career. Through five games, Brady leads the NFL in competitions (149), passing yards (1,767) and passing yards per game (353.4). But the most important stat is 4-1 which is the Buccaneers' record.
Brady also talked about facing the Eagles who present a challenge despite struggling this season. "It's a really tough defense, he said on the team's official website. "They get a lot of pressure with those guys up front; they have one of the best D-Lines in football. They're doing some different things with their coverages. They have a talented group of players, no doubt. I think they're kind of an ascending football team. I think it's a team that…they're a very dangerous football team. Dangerous – they're very explosive on defense.