BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — It turns out New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has suffered a lot of cuts at Gillette Stadium.
We knew about the time he cut his hand with scissors, and the most recent occurrence happened when he sliced up his throwing hand while handing off to running back Rex Burkhead prior to the Patriots’ AFC Championship Game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He’s still wearing a glove from that incident.
But only WBZ’s Steve Burton seemed to know about the time Brady had a run-in with a dog at Gillette Stadium.
Brady didn’t know what year it occurred, but it was at some point between 2008 and 2014, because he said former Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo and defensive tackle Vince Wilfork were there for it.
“Wow! Yeah,” Brady said. “I was bitten by two dogs. One when I was little in Minnesota at my grandpa’s farm here. I gave the dog a bone and then went down to give the dog a kiss. I was young, and he bit right through my lip. It was pretty rough.”
That story is relevant because Brady is playing Super Bowl LII on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles in Minneapolis.
Brady recalled there was military training happening one night during training camp at Gillette Stadium.
“Some guys were kind of excited to see us walk out, so I kind of got close to all the guys, and I didn’t realize there were dogs,” Brady said. “Obviously those weren’t like Labrador (Retrievers). These were like tough dogs. I raised my arms up over my head, and right when I raised my arms up, the dog jumped up, and I guess was going for my neck and the guy grabbed the dog back down and the dog got my thigh on the way down.
“I was standing there with a bunch of tough guys, and they all saw it. They’re like, ‘Are you OK?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, of course I’m OK,’ but I could feel the cut. … I’m with the toughest guys in the world, so I just sucked it up for like an hour after we said hi to all the guys.”
Then Brady went straight inside the stadium to get mended to by head trainer Jim Whalen.
“I have a nice little scar on my quad thanks to that night,” he said. “I learned a very valuable lesson.”
