Tom Brady's first season with the Buccaneers has been quite the story.
The 43-year-old signed with the Bucs last offseason and led them to becoming the first team in NFL history to play a Super Bowl at their home stadium, eventually winning it. What makes this even more unbelievable is that he played through the entire 2020 season on a fully torn MCL.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported that Brady played through the season with a fully torn MCL, which he got surgery on to correct it this offseason.
Before this, the football world didn't know much about the knee surgery that he had, except that he described it as "pretty serious." Bruce Arians wanted to go on the side of caution heading into training camp, while Brady admitted that he was battling through it since April 2020, per CBS Sports.
Bucs QBs coach Clyde Christensen said this past June that he believed that Brady's knee injury was a "nagging nuisance" that bothered him throughout the season, per a report from ESPN. Brady wore a brace on his left knee during the Bucs' Super Bowl parade, but wearing that brace is not uncommon for him, as he also wears the brace when golfing and other recreational activities.
The question is if what the Bucs can do for the 2021 season when Brady gets fully healthy and has a year's worth of experience with Bruce Arians. And with the Bucs retaining all their starters from the Super Bowl-winning team from last season, it's likely that they will get rolling once the season starts.
And although the fact that Brady played the entire 2020 season on one leg, this doesn't really look all that good on the Bucs. It could possibly land them in hot water with the NFL for failing to disclose the injury.
According to the NFL's rulebook, "All players who have reportable injuries must be listed on the practice report, even if the player takes all the reps in practice, and even if the team is certain that he will play in the upcoming game. This is especially true of key players and those players whose injuries have been the subject of local or national media coverage."
The fact that the NFL mentions that all key players should be on the report is something that the Bucs will have a hard time trying to make an argument towards their favor. That means, if the Bucs were aware of Brady's injury, their failure to report the injury could mean very serious penalties, such as fines and suspensions of the people involved, as well as the forfeiture of draft picks.
The NFL previously punished teams that were hiding injuries, especially high-profile ones, such as fining the Jets $125,000 after hiding a Brett Favre injury in 2008.
More recently, the Steelers were fined $100,000 for not accurately listing Ben Roethlisberger on their Week 2 injury report in 2019. Big Ben missed a practice that led up to the Steelers' game against the Seahawks with an elbow injury, but the Steelers did not list the injury. Instead, they listed his absence from practice as a veteran rest day. The NFL found out about the injury when Mason Rudolph noted that Big Ben suffered elbow pain leading up to the game, where he suffered an elbow injury that forced him to have Tommy John surgery and miss the rest of the season.
If both the Jets and Steelers got hit with major fines for hiding injuries from the NFL, it wouldn't be surprising if the Bucs got hit with something similar or possibly even stiffer, because the Bucs spent an entire season without acknowledging Brady's fully torn MCL on their practice reports. The worst-case scenario is a large fine plus suspension of the personnel who were involved, plus another suspension for Brady.
How will the NFL handle this situation? Please let us know.
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