TAMPA, Fla. — Tom Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl victory at age 43 during a pandemic, becoming the first quarterback to win a title in his team’s home stadium.

But the legend only grows from there.

Brady did it while playing with a partially torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee that he sustained in his final season with the Patriots.

The injury gradually worsened during his first year with the Bucs and he finally had surgery to repair the MCL in late February after winning his seventh Super Bowl ring.

Brady has declined to give specifics about his knee surgery, only confirming that it was “pretty serious.”

The Super Bowl MVP had acknowledged that the injury occurred prior to taking his first snap with the Bucs in training camp. It was in the same knee in which Brady tore his anterior cruciate ligament during Week 1 of the 2008 season.

The MCL is a band of tissue that runs along the inner edge of the knee. It helps to connect the shin and thigh bones to keep the knee stable and working properly during movement.

The risk of playing with a partially torn MCL is that the knee can become hyperextended easily and bend in the wrong direction.

“It was an injury I dealt with really since last, you know, April, May,” Brady said following the Bucs’ mandatory minicamp in June. “I knew I would have to do something at the end of the year and happy I did it and it was probably something that certainly needed to be done and there was a great outcome, so I’m very happy about that. I feel like there’s some things I’ll be able to do this year that I wasn’t able to do last year.”

Brady missed about one practice each week the final few months of the 2020 season, presumably to give his ailing knee some rest.

He was good enough to pass for 4,633 yards with 40 touchdowns and 12 interceptions while leading the Bucs to an 11-5 record during the regular season. He added another 1,061 yards passing with 10 touchdowns and three interceptions in four preseason games, including the Super Bowl at Raymond James Stadium.

Brady has spent the offseason rehabbing the knee, and this week is working out at altitude near his summer home in Yellowstone, Montana.