Tom Brady doesn’t want to you to think he’s special because he played with a cut on his hand. Everyone else does though.

A cut hand. That was the story of the week leading up to NFL Championship Sunday. But it wasn’t just any hand — it was Tom Brady’s throwing hand. A single cut and a few stitches prompted a week of hand-wringing, but it clearly wasn’t too big of a deal in Sunday’s 24-20 comeback win over the Jaguars.

Brady knows it, too. The humble Michigan Man didn’t want to make himself into some kind of hero for playing through a small laceration.

“I think it kind of sounds arrogant to say, ‘Oh, yeah, it bothered me,’ when you have a pretty good game. So I won’t say it,” Brady said after the game.

No, he won’t say he was bothered by it, but, oh, he was bothered by it. How do we know? Because in the process of not wanting to tell us just how bothered he was, he told us just how concerned he was.

“I’ve had a couple of crazy injuries, but this was pretty crazy. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do.”

Oh no!

The injury happened Wednesday. He snagged his thumb on a hand off in practice to running back Rex Burkhead.

“It wasn’t his helmet or anything. It just kind of got bent back and that’s why I thought it was a lot worse. The doctors checked it out and we did the things just to kind of check on everything. Fortunately there wasn’t the damage that normally comes associated with that. I think we were very lucky.”

Oh, yes, we are ALL very lucky. Because even though it was just a “little injury,” no amount of kale smoothies and electrolytes could put Brady’s mind at ease.

“Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, I wasn’t sure. Friday, gained a little confidence. Saturday, trying to figure out what we could do. Sunday, try to come out here and make it happen,” he said Monday on WEEI in Boston.

And while Brady didn’t want to talk about how much his hand bothered him and how he played through it despite how much it did, in fact, bother him, his teammates had plenty to say on his behalf.

“It’s unbelievable what he does. The injuries he fights through and playing football at 40 years old is unreal,” Burkhead said, in a comment that he’s probably going to be reprimanded for because it it reveals perhaps more injuries than Brady would like to talk about and makes you wonder if his TB12 lifestyle brand leaves something to be desired.

“The toughest guy I’ve ever met” is how Danny Amendola described him. But he too revealed a little too much, telling reporters that the injury left Brady “stressed out a bit. Physically, it’s hard to throw with stitches in your thumb.”

But throw he did, with a piece of black tape over his cut, to the tune of 26 for 38 with 290 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Grit personified. The stuff that legends are made of.

“We’re not talking about open-heart surgery,” Bill Belichick said, dosing the whole thing with a cup of non-electrolyte-filled, cold tap water.