Tom Brady Injury Update: Will The Quarterback Be Affected In Super Bowl 2018?

Any concerns about Tom Brady’s hand injury seemed to go away in the AFC Championship Game when the New England Patriots defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars. The quarterback looked as good as ever, leading the team to a Super Bowl 2018 matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles.

When he first suffered the injury, Brady wasn’t certain that would be the case. The quarterback didn’t practice just a few days before the game, telling WEEI’s “Kirk & Callahan” he initially didn’t know if he’d be able to start Sunday afternoon.

“I wasn’t sure, I really wasn’t," Brady said. "Wednesday, it happened and Wednesday night I definitely wasn’t sure, but it was just a crazy injury in practice. It didn’t look good there for a little bit, but fortunately, Thursday, I didn’t practice, I took some time off. Friday, did just a little bit and things kind of felt a lot better on Saturday and [Sunday] I was just able to kind of do what I needed to do. Everyone deals with injuries. It is just part of the season and part of the year. The timing and where exactly it was wasn’t the best thing in the world for a quarterback, but it is what it is.”

Brady received 12 stitches, which he expects to be taken out sometime this week. The Patriots have two weeks off until they meet the Eagles in Super Bowl LII on Feb.4 in Minneapolis.

“It was pretty stressful. I was stressed out," he said. "You drive home and you have all these stitches in this place. You’re driving home and I saw my wife and she said, ‘What happened?!’ and I said, ‘I know, it was just an accident in practice.’ She said, ‘What is going to happen?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.’”

You wouldn’t know that Brady ever had worried about missing the AFC Championship Game by the way he performed. Against the NFL’s No.1 passing defense, Brady completed 26 of 38 passes for 290 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

Jacksonville led New England for most of the game, nearly pulling off the upset. Brady engineered a record-setting eighth career playoff comeback in the fourth quarter.

When head coach Bill Belichick was asked about Brady’s hand injury Sunday, he made it seem like there never was much doubt about his quarterback's playing status.

“Look Tom did a great job. He’s a tough guy. We all know that. But we’re not talking about open heart surgery here,” Belichick told reporters.

New England is favored to defeat Philadelphia in Super Bowl LII. A win would give the Patriots their second championship in a row and their third title in four years.

The Patriots have a 5-2 Super Bowl record in the Brady-Belichick era.