It’s now known that Tom Brady played most if not all of the 2020 season with a torn MCL in his left knee. So when did he tear it?
No one seems to know for sure.
Some believe it happened while he played for the Patriots. If so, the Patriots quite possibly didn’t know about it. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Brady didn’t submit to an end-of-season exit physical after the 2019 campaign, his last in New England.
Whether and to what extent Brady had a thorough, probing physical before signing with the Buccaneers isn’t known. He has said that he began dealing with the problem in April-May 2020. He has never specified the incident or moment that tore the ligament.
It’s also not known whether he ever disclosed the injury to the Buccaneers, if it happened after he signed with the team. It’s possible that he never received treatment for the knee from any of the team’s trainers because he has his own training staff that operates under the umbrella of TB12 and Alex Guerrero. The question that becomes whether he mentioned the injury to coach Bruce Arians or anyone else with the team.
It’s hard to to imagine that the Buccaneers didn’t know about the knee injury. “Every week I was kind of tending to my knee, and I thought I would love to see a season where I can focus on some other strength stuff that I want to do, some other technique stuff where I’m not just focused on protecting my knee all the time,” Brady said in May 2021. If so, someone with the team eventually is going to notice -- and Brady at some point is going to let his effort to protect his impaired knee become a factor in game planning.
Add this subject to the growing list of matters on which Brady needs to be questioned when he speaks to reporters at training camp, including but not limited to the identity of the “motherf--ker” to whom he was referring during a recent appearance on HBO’s The Shop.