All the talk leading up to Sunday’s AFC Championship Game between the New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars was supposed to be about a clash between a dynamic offense and physical defense.
Then Tom Brady’s hand injury occurred.
The Patriots quarterback reportedly suffered an injury to his throwing hand while making a handoff during Wednesday’s practice, and is questionable to play against the Jaguars.
While encouraging details emerged Friday, it appears that Brady’s injury is “not nothing,” and that has given Skip Bayless cause for concern.
FS1’s resident hot take artist has been an unabashed Patriots supporter for quite some time, but he admitted Friday on his FS1 show “Undisputed” that he’s “scared to death” of the injury.
“I’m scared to death of this,” Bayless said before delving into why he believes this will change the dynamic of Sunday’s game.
“So if it’s something, if it’s more than you think it is, if he has any trouble at all, it’s going to level this playing field in a hurry,” Bayless said. “And Blake Bortles — if he just doesn’t throw it to the other team — will keep them in this game. So I’m still going to hang on and hang in with my preseason pick, that Tom Brady is going to get back to and win a sixth Super Bowl. But this is going to be tight, and now it’s going to be a defensive struggle to me. I’m going to go Patriots barely 17-14. Low scoring because I don’t think the Patriots are going to be able to score much because I do think he will be handicapped, hampered, whatever you want to say. I don’t think he’ll be quite Tom Brady.”
Brady, for his part, offered only “we’ll see” when asked if he would play Sunday, and while the Jaguars are preparing for him to be at full strength, it certainly sounds like a reason for the Patriots to be concerned.
