HOUSTON — New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady embraced a variety of topics in a memorable four-day stretch at Super Bowl LI, and one that seemed to hit a sweet spot for him was how the team enters Sunday as arguably the healthiest it has ever been at this point of a season.
Yes, the Patriots lost tight end Rob Gronkowski to season-ending back surgery in late November, and that’s a biggie. And fellow tight end Martellus Bennett has been playing through a significant ankle injury that could require attention in the offseason, with the odds high that he’s not the only player who falls into that type of category.
So it’s not a 100 percent clean sheet (it never is at this point), but when considering the Patriots have placed just four players on IR all season (last year: 15) and might not have a single injured player to declare inactive Sunday, it highlights one of the keys to the team’s season.
Coach Bill Belichick often says that nothing is more important than the health of players. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Falcons have a significant injury-related question at the heart of the line of scrimmage, with center Alex Mack (fibula) clearly not at 100 percent.
Brady is hoping the overall solid bill of team health is a factor in the Patriots — who were led by first-year strength and conditioning coach Moses Cabrera in 2016 — playing their best game of the season when it counts the most Sunday.
“Coach has done a great job of facilitating a lot of changes to our program, and a lot of guys are seeing the benefit,” Brady said. “There are a lot of diagnostic tools to understand output and so forth. Your ability to work hard is only as good as your ability to recover. I think a lot of people are starting to focus on recovery, as opposed to just ‘let’s go work hard.’ There’s an expense to working hard. If you’re not feeling good for the next day, over the course of the week, your performance gets worse. So I think you can work hard, recover hard and be ready to go again the next day.”
One example of the increased focus on recovery comes with GPS tracking devices that players wear at practice. When those results are later processed, if it showed a player might be laboring compared to his usual output, the workload for that player the next day might be scaled back.
Along those lines, the Patriots also experimented with holding more full-pads practices on Thursday instead of Wednesday this year, giving players one more day to recover after a Sunday game.
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“Coach has done just a great job with the team, getting those guys to understand,” Brady said. “As opposed to the way it always used to be, you come in, jump in the cold bath and come out again the next day. Well, that doesn’t work. It works to a point, but those things that have happened many years, that have been passed down from generation to generation, change.
“I think people are starting to get good at recovery, and I think that’s only going to improve the game. If you have really good players that can play long periods of time, it’s going to be a more competitive league. I think that’s a great thing. You just have great players at all positions because guys wouldn’t retire due to their bodies failing.”
This area is something Brady clearly is passionate about, as it ties directly into his TB12 Sports Therapy Center, which is located at Patriot Place (connected to the team’s home facility) and receives visits from several Patriots players. Receiver Julian Edelman is a regular.
“I pick his brain all the time with how to take care of your body with all the pliability and muscles, the hydration factor, how to eat, sleep,” Edelman said. “It’s crazy in this day and age now that you get all these crazy studies, and it can actually be very beneficial for you.”
For the entire team, really, with perhaps no better example than the team’s revived running game that could be called upon often in Super Bowl LI.
“The key for us is that we’ve stayed healthy both at the offensive line and at my position,” running backs coach Ivan Fears said. “I wish Gronk was around, that would help a lot getting people out of the box, but still we’ve been able to stay together as a unit, and every little aspect of our program that helps us get that done has been big. The nutrition part, the weight training, the sleep studies — the whole package has helped the guys stay healthy and been big.”
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