Brady's Back, but no Answers Until Fall

Albert Breer - SportingNews.com

FOXBOROUGH, MASS. -- Want answers?

Don't look for them on Tom Brady. Not yet, anyway.

Yes, the three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback hit the practice field with his teammates Thursday as the Patriots opened training camp.

Brady ran the first-team offense. He wore a bulky brace over his left knee. He moved well. He looked rusty, floating some passes and trying to squeeze others into windows too tight. And then thunder rolled in and the skies opened, so practice was stopped and Brady hustled off with his teammates.

The end.

The fact is no one is going to get any answers until Aug. 13, when the Patriots open their preseason schedule at Philadelphia. And the real answers probably won't come for a month after that, on Sept. 14 against Buffalo.

What Brady did Thursday is what he did all spring: Practice with his teammates and prepare for the season. Still, every eyeball within a couple long spirals of the field was trained on No. 12. All of them, that is, except the rest of the guys on the team.

Asked if seeing Brady practicing elicited confidence, running back Kevin Faulk -- who arrived in Foxborough a year before the quarterback -- answered, "Of course it does. Just like it does (to see) Adalius Thomas, Laurence Maroney and all the guys that were hurt before the season got over last year. It was great to see them out there doing their job and doing what they love to do."

Faulk then fielded a question on whether he noticed a change in Brady since his offseason nuptials. "I got married a few years ago," he said with a smirk, "and no one mentioned that."

For the nearly 4,000 fans in attendance, Thursday's practice was the first glance at Brady in action since he got hurt in the '08 season opener. But for the quarterback and his teammates, the biggest difference between this practice and spring workouts was that the players were in full pads. Defenders, however, aren't allowed to hit quarterbacks in practice, so for Brady this was just another day working toward live game action.

"It'll add to what he did in the spring," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said Thursday. "He's certainly a big presence on our team, and it's good to have him back, along with all the other players -- Terrence Wheatley, Adalius Thomas, Laurence Maroney, you can go right down the line -- it's good to see a lot of those guys out there today."

Better will be the day when the next step is taken.

According to those around Brady, his mental toughness, optimism and work ethic have been off the charts through every juncture of the rehab process since he had the initial setback with an infection to his injured knee.

"He's blown all those benchmarks out of the water," one source close to Brady said. "After that, really, what's left is to get back on the field and get his timing back."

Until he does that -- in a game -- there will remain a bit of mystery surrounding Brady's comeback.

Neither Belichick nor Brady knows how that next step will go. So for now, really, nothing has changed. That, for the time being, is just the way the Patriots want it.

Staff writer Albert Breer covers the NFL for Sporting News. E-mail him at abreer@sportingnews.com.

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