Tom Brady addressed last week’s knee scare for the first time, and being the quarterback of the Patriots, said he felt the issue was overblown by the media.
While regular season practices are away from prying eyes (and cell phone video and Twitter accounts), the Patriots quarterback’s going down in a heap was in the middle of a heavily attended joint workout with the Buccaneers.
“There are a lot of people at practice that were witnessing,” Brady told WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan this morning (via the Boston Herald). “If that was a Wednesday or Thursday practice during the regular season, you’d probably never hear anything about it. But it’s just obviously the nature of Twitter and all that social media and stuff.
“It happens on the practice field. It happens on the game field. You see so many injuries that have happened over the course of this preseason, so football is not for the faint of heart. You get bumps and bruises, and hopefully nothing is too serious, and you can just bounce back from it and move on.”
Brady said he knew soon after practice that he’d be fine, and said his leaving the practice field was a precaution.
“I wouldn’t say frightened,” Brady said. “You’re just wondering what happened because I didn’t obviously see anything. You just feel something and then you react. I went back in really to finish the period out that we had going, and then just talked to coach [Bill] Belichick and our trainer and figured just try to be safe. I felt bad it caused more of a media story than it actually was worthy of because I hate to really draw attention in that sort. But we were really just trying to be smart.”
Because he missed an entire season with an injury to the same knee, it’s going to be an issue, and only hiding it would keep it from being a big deal.