After watching him perform in a Southern California park, Dr. Neal ElAttrache was incredibly impressed by Tom Brady’s recovery from knee surgery.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the NFL star’s surgery and physical rehabilitation, ElAttrache told The Times that Brady “even exceeded what I thought he was going to be able to do, and I was expecting big things from him.”

With Brady’s permission, ElAttrache spoke about the knee reconstruction, treatment of a subsequent infection, and the patient’s unwavering focus to recuperate in time to play this season.

“With regard to his recovery of strength, I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” said ElAttrache, who serves as team physician for the Dodgers and worked with the L.A. Rams. “With an average person, it would have taken probably twice as long to get range of motion and strength back.”

As the article mentions, Brady received some flack when he chose ElAttrache over one of the team’s doctors. At first, it seemed like a viable criticism. After all, if the team was going to sink millions of dollars into Brady’s athletic abilities, then they should have the right to know who’s working on their star quarterback’s knee.

But Brady had it right all along. It’s his knee and therefore he had the right to pick the doctor he wanted. As it turns out, his recovery has been fantastic and unless he suffers a setback, he should be ready to go Week 1 of the season.

He still has a long way to go and I’m sure they’re going to remain overly cautious with him, but the Patriots must obviously be ecstatic by this news.

According to a report by The Sporting News, Tom Brady is showing no restrictions as he continues to recover from reconstructive knee surgery.

Brady was able to return his normal rehabilitation schedule within “10 days to two weeks” after the follow-up procedures, the source said. That means the quarterback is roughly six months into the rehab process.

“He’s full go,” the source said Tuesday. A second source confirmed that assessment.
Brady hasn’t been shy about taking part in the club’s offseason program, giving teammates a close-up look at his progress. Most Patriots players are apprehensive about shedding too much light on player injuries and rehabs, but indications have been uniformly positive.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick last month said Brady had been “doing his offseason work without any limitations.” Owner Robert Kraft has said Brady will wear a brace on the left knee, which is standard for players coming off this type of injury. Both Rivers and Palmer wore knee braces coming off their ailments.

Even if Brady’s rehab is complete, it’s hard to say he has come full circle.

There’s a significant mental mountain a player has to climb in returning to game action. Authorities in sports medicine say it takes roughly two months of live action for a player to fully learn to use his new knee.

Brady has a long way to go, but this is definitely an encouraging sign for him and the Patriots. Obviously New England wouldn’t have traded Matt Cassel to Kansas City in the offseason if they didn’t feel Brady would fully recover from his knee surgery in time for the start of the season.

If he’s fully recovered, there’s no reason to believe the Patriots won’t again be the team to beat in the AFC, as they were before Brady’s injury in Week 1 of last year.

According to the Boston Globe, Tom Brady’s recovery from ACL and MCL surgery is on track for the 2009 season opener and he’s even started to throw passes.

While the Patriots obviously want Brady, the 2007 NFL MVP, back for the start of the 2009 season, the greater concern is how strong the knee will be when he returns, how long the knee will hold up, and how it will affect his play.

Brady, who turns 32 in August, and the Patriots likely will not have definitive answers to those questions until this summer, when the quarterback can test himself in game-like situations at training camp.

All the more reason for the Patriots to place the franchise tag on backup quarterback Matt Cassel, who proved a more than capable starter while filling in for Brady. The Patriots can’t franchise Cassel, preventing the QB from becoming an unrestricted free agent, until Feb. 5.

Still, the latest reports on Brady’s knee seem more encouraging than a month ago, when an NBCSports.com report said both the ACL and MCL were loose and a second reconstructive surgery would be required to repair the problem.

The report said the second surgery could cost Brady the 2009 season.

The Pats must franchise Cassel to protect themselves if Brady doesn’t recover. Sure, a lot of cap space will be eaten up at the quarterback position next year if they do tag Cassel, but it’s better to have him as a security blanket so if Brady goes down again, their entire season doesn’t go down the drain because they don’t have an experienced backup.

Tagging Cassel buys the Pats one year to figure out what they want to do long-term.