Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is back to the grind with his Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates in hopes of repeating as Super Bowl champions.
And Brady, who underwent, as he put it, a ‘pretty serious’ surgery on his knee back in February, explained how he is feeling following one of the team’s mandatory minicamp sessions Wednesday. Still, and perhaps to no surprise, it seems Brady is ready to go.
“I feel really good. … I’m really happy with my rehab process,” Brady told reporters, per the Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud. “It’s been great communication. Alex (Guerrero) and I have worked really hard at trying to get back to full speed to get what I need to do to improve. It’s been a good process of learning and I feel like I’m there now.”
Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians on Tuesday noted how Brady already was back to full speed.
“From this point to the beginning of training camp, I feel like I can really work hard at football improvement as opposed to getting back to a rehab place where you’re more baseline,” Brady said. “It was an injury I dealt with really since last April-May and, you know, I knew I would have to do something at the end of the year and happy I did it.”
Arians, when speaking with reporters back in late February, expected Brady would be ready to participate in Tampa Bay’s 7-on-7 sessions. It reportedly never was thought he would miss the offseason. The head coach, however, still seems pleased with where the signal-caller is from a physical standpoint.
“He looked fine. I had to pull him out a couple (times),” Arians said Tuesday, per the team. “The first period I said, ‘OK, you can have four,’ and he kept begging to go back in. … The doctors and him — they both said he was good to go. We’ll still be careful with what we’re doing with him, but trying to stop him from playing is pretty tough.”
Brady and the defending champion Buccaneers will play the first game of the 2021 NFL campaign against the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 9.
