PHOENIX - With his right ankle heavily taped, quarterback Tom Brady took to the practice field yesterday at Arizona State's Sun Devil Stadium in preparation for Sunday's Super Bowl XLII against the Giants. It was the first time he had practiced since suffering the injury in the third quarter of the AFC Championship game against the Chargers.
"Everybody practiced," coach Bill Belichick told a pool reporter when asked about Brady. "The injury report will be out Wednesday."
Brady's return, albeit with a slight limp as observed by pool reporter Dan Pompei of the Chicago Tribune, was a welcome sight to his teammates.
"Any time you get the MVP of the league back, it's always something positive," said wide receiver Wes Welker.
Brady participated in all phases of the practice, which lasted an hour and 40 minutes, and he jogged the length of the field twice at the end of drills.
As for the limp? "I'm not worried about that," said left tackle Matt Light. "If he's out there, he's going to get after it. I'm sure of that one."
Asked what percentage of Brady he would take over any other quarterback, Light replied, "Well, he's the only guy I've had back there for seven years now. I've been pretty fortunate to have a guy that gets it as well as he does. I don't think that I could picture anybody else back there. I'm glad he's with us."
Greater expectations
Safety Rodney Harrison said he expects the Patriot defense to play better against the Giants than it did in the regular-season meeting. The Patriots won, 38-35, but the 35 points allowed were a season high, although one of New York's touchdowns came on a 74-yard kickoff return by Domenik Hixon.Eli Manning tied a career high with four touchdown passes and completed 22 of 32 passes for 251 yards. His 68.8 percent completion percentage was the highest by a starting quarterback against the Patriots this year, including playoffs. The same goes for the Giants 60 percent third-down conversion rate (6 for 10).
"That's all we've watched, and I've watched the game four or five times," said Harrison. "The good thing is that I don't think that we could play any worse than that, so that's the good thing - we have a lot of room for improvement. I can probably guarantee that we won't play that bad."
Loose ends
The Patriots enjoyed practicing in the relative warmth of Arizona. With temperatures in Tempe in the 60s, it was a nice change of climate from frosty Foxborough."I definitely felt like I could run around. It was a fun and warm time," said defensive end Ty Warren. "I definitely felt loose. It was a beautiful day, a change of scenery, no snow on the ground."
Welker, who spent the first three years of his career in warm-climate cities (San Diego, Miami), also enjoyed the weather.
"It seemed like it would take forever to get warmed up there in Foxborough," he said. "Here you walk outside and you feel warm and ready to go and you're running fast and you're crisp."
Holovak recalled
Belichick offered his first public reaction yesterday to the death Sunday of former Patriots and Boston College coach Mike Holovak. "As an organization, we send out our respects to Mike's family," the coach said. "I had known Mike for a long time, most recently when he was with Tennessee/Houston. Mike had a strong impact on the game both as a coach and as a general manager and as an executive in the league for a long time."He was well-respected and well thought of and one of the guys I looked up to and admired as I was growing up."
Place your bets
As always with the Super Bowl, you can make any number of proposition bets in Las Vegas. Among the 350 or so "props" posted by the Las Vegas Hilton sports book were the following who-will-have-more wagers: Laurence Maroney rushing yards or the University of Minnesota basketball team's total points vs. Wisconsin; the Patriots' net yards or the total points scored by the six MAAC basketball teams (Fairfield, Niagara, Loyola, Canisius, Manhattan, and St. Peter's) on Super Sunday; and the number of Randy Moss receptions or Tiger Woods fourth-round birdies in the Dubai Classic . . . The over/under on the jersey number of the first player to score a touchdown in Super Bowl XLII is 43.5. The jersey numbers of the players who scored first in the Patriots' three Super Bowl triumphs: Ty Law (No. 24) in Super Bowl XXXVI; Deion Branch (No. 83) in Super Bowl XXXVIII; and David Givens (No. 87) in Super Bowl XXXIX.Quick quiz
Who is the only player on the Patriots' current 53-man roster who has scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl? It's linebacker Mike Vrabel, who hauled in a 1-yard pass from Tom Brady in their 32-29 victory over the Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII, and a 2-yard pass from Brady in a 24-21 victory over the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX . . . This Super Bowl already has made history, whether the Patriots go 19-0 or not. A record 4,786 media credentials have been issued.
