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For the past week the only thing the media was able to talk about leading up to the AFC championship game between the New England Patriots and the Jacksonville Jaguars was if Tom Brady’s hand injury was going to prevent him from performing on Sunday.
#Patriots QB Tom Brady, who will play today vs. the #Jaguars, made half of his throws on Friday without a glove, sources say, despite several stitches. One source described him as "ripping it." In other words, Brady looked great and ready.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 21, 2018
Brady went on to kill it on Sunday despite the hand injury and the Patriots are now on their way to another Super Bowl. After keeping the injury a secret for nearly a week Brady took off his hand wrap after the Pats game on Sunday and someone snapped a photo of his hand.
The glove was off Tom Brady's right hand after he spoke to the media postgame. pic.twitter.com/cV7Dn8fKXV
— ESPN (@espn) January 22, 2018
Here’s what Brady had to say about the injury while speaking to the media after the AFC championship game.
Via NFL.com
“I’ve never had anything like it. I’ve had a couple crazy injuries, but this was pretty crazy,” Brady told reporters. “They come up and you just deal with them, and I wasn’t quite sure how I was gonna do.
“This was a little injury at the end of the day. It’s certainly a big part of what a quarterback does. I’ve had a lot worse injuries than this. But if this was on my left hand, I couldn’t care less. But based on where it was, we had to deal with it.”
While everyone praised Brady’s resolve during yesterday’s AFC championship game Patriots head coach Bill Belichick didn’t seem entirely impressed by Brady playing through the hand injury.
“You know, Tom did a great job and he’s a tough guy. We all know that,” Belichick said. “I’m not talking about open-heart surgery here.”