Buccaneers: Five takeaways from Bruce Arians and Jason Licht last week

JPP, Brady and Jordan Whitehead will all go under the knife this offseason

Now, this isn’t incredibly uncommon, per se. You hear about guys “playing through injuries” all the time in the NFL. Jason Pierre-Paul’s left knee injury looks to be pretty routine and he should return without any major delay, per ESPN. Brady’s seems a little more “hush-hush”, but also a knee clean-up. He’s been playing with a brace on the knee for the last few years which always makes you hold your breath as he gets taken down below the waist. TheSpun reports he might have played through quite a bit of discomfort in Super Bowl LV, although his people are keeping it quiet. If this is true it of course only adds further to his legend and provides a bit of sweet irony as of course it was the Kansas Chiefs who gave Brady that devastating ACL, MCL injury which kept him out of the 2008 campaign.

We shouldn’t expect Brady to do much “on the field stuff” until probably June of 2021. Jordan Whitehead, on the other hand, could be a bit more of a close call for next season. He too played through injuries in the Super Bowl, having suffered a torn labrum in that brutal hit against Aaron Jones in the NFC Championship game. Reports from Greg Auman at The Athletic say his recovery could last up to six months which certainly affects the offseason and potentially leaks into the preseason. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed because this kid is a heat-seeking missile on the field!