Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady called his offseason knee surgery “pretty serious” and that his knee had bothered him for some time without revealing the specific nature of the injury.
Thursday brings word on that front. Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times reports that Brady had a partially torn medial collateral ligament. Brady said the injury first surfaced in the spring, but Stroud reports that the tear actually happened during his final season with New England.
Brady, who also dealt with an MCL sprain down the stretch of the 2018 season with the Patriots, never appeared on the injury report during the 2020 season. He had surgery to repair it in February after the Bucs beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
Brady is expected to be ready to go when the Bucs open training camp later this month.
UPDATE 4:30 p.m. ET: Ian Rapoport of NFL Media followed up with a report that Brady’s MCL was actually fully torn.