See that folks? No walking boot. Apparently you needed to see this because every news medium that covers sports, celebrity, and shoes freaked out as soon as Tom Brady was seen in NYC walking with a protective boot up to the apartment of girlfriend Gisele Bundchen. Is his leg sprained? Is it broken? Is it gangrene? Will he play in the Super Bowl? Will he ever play again? Is he DYING?!?
Look, the fact of the matter is football is a high-contact sport and bumps and bruises will happen. In fact, it’s incredible how little the Patriots were injured this year overall - only major injuries were Richard Seymour’s injuries coming into the season, one game (against the Giants) without the right side of the offensive line (how is the fact that the Giants lost when the Pats were crippled on Brady’s right all game not a bigger story?), the loss of Sammy Morris and Rosy Colvin to the IR, and the occasional bumps and bruises during games. Truly a testament to their conditioning.
So when a high-profile player like Brady gets hurt, it’s just part of the game. At this point, it seems to be a high ankle sprain, which should be healed in time for Super Bowl Sunday. Besides, unless your initials are “LT,” you’re not going to let an injury keep you from playing in a huge game to get to the postseason. If you allow yourself to get caught up in the hype, you’d think Brady’s career was over. Sports coverage needs to calm down and let the stories come out before they jump to rash, ridiculous claims about injuries.
Two asides:
- The Giants fans are being urged by a local radio station to wear Bridget Moynahan masks to the game to “psyche out” Brady…pretty creative stunt indeed. It’s been done before, both by Giants fans to Tony Romo and even by Boston’s own fans to a New York athlete. Q104.3 is making a great name for itself with this gag though and they deserve some credit for orchestrating this for the second straight week. If they were really creative though, they’d tell people to bring a baby doll with them, too, and recreate this shot.
- Anyone else hear that Patriots scrapper, “The Natural” Wes Welker, has been getting some love from the Got Milk campaign? Here is a behind-the-scenes shot of it, courtesy of the Providence Journal. Keep an eye out for this ad in coming weeks…