New York: New England’s superstar quarterback Tom Brady said on Wednesday his sprained right ankle is “feeling better” as the Patriots prepare for the NFL playoffs.
“Feeling better. Better than I was a couple days ago,” said Brady as he took the podium for a press conference.
Brady sprained his ankle in the Patriots’ regular-season finale on Sunday, a 20-10 loss to the Miami Dolphins, when defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh landed on him early in the second quarter.
Brady has some time to heal, since the Patriots enjoy a first-round bye this week before hosting a second-round game on Saturday, January 16 against either the Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Texans or Kansas City Chiefs.
“This is the first time we’ve had off in quite a while,” Brady said. “A lot of guys have been fighting through different bumps and bruises over the course of the season, so you try to take advantage of it the best you can to feel good, because we’re going to need everybody a week from Saturday to be at their very best.
“It’s a lot of time kind of obviously preparing, there are a lot of different scenarios, so you try to do your best mentally to get ready and physically you have to put as much effort as you can to make yourself feel better.”
Brady and his reigning Super Bowl champion Patriots launched the regular season with 10 straight victories, roaring through the early stages of the campaign after a US judge quashed Brady’s four-game suspension meted out by the NFL over his supposed role in the “Deflate-gate” scandal involving the Patriots’ use of underinflated footballs in last season’s AFC championship game.
The Patriots finished the regular-season 12-4, and their season-ending loss to Miami allowed the Denver Broncos to claim the top seed and home field advantage in the AFC.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said.
And Brady said on Wednesday he was ready to get down to it.
“I just try to do my best to help our team win. That’s what my goal is,” Brady said on Wednesday. “As mentally focused as I can be on that, it will help our team win. We’ve all worked pretty hard to get to this point.
“I read a cool quote the other day that said, ‘I didn’t come this far to only come this far.’ We still have further to go.”
