AP

Tom Brady has a hand injury that will affect him on Sunday. Unless it doesn’t.

The Jaguars will be better on the latter, and preparing to face Brady at 100 percent.

“I remember [Bill running back] LeSean McCoy said he had a high ankle sprain and came out there cutting and stuff,” Jaguars defensive lineman Malik Jackson said on Thursday’s PFT Live, in reference to McCoy’s status before the wild-card game between Buffalo and Jacksonville. So Jackson said he’ll assume that Brady will be the same old Brady.

Regardless of Brady’s status, Jackson believes that the Jaguars can slow the New England offense, if they follow the right formula.

“We have to go rush the quarterback,” Jackson said. “Also we have to make sure we press the pocket up the middle because he likes to step up in the middle or that’s where he feels comfortable standing behind that center. That’s what I told our [defensive] line. We have to make sure that we create pressure, have to rally and tackle and just frustrate him. He is 40, so we can hit him.”

He’s definitely 40. Whether he’s definitely injured is a different story.

Because it’s the Patriots, plenty of people are assuming that there’s something fishy about the situation. “Did he actually practice even if he was listed as not practicing?” some are wondering.

It’s hard to find a tangible benefit to the Patriots for embellishing or exaggerating or fabricating a Brady hand injury, other than to get the Jaguars to feel overconfident. A next-level cynic may suggest that Brady is simply trying to set up a built-in excuse, in the event that the recently-lowly Jaguars roll into Foxborough and make that 40-year-old quarterback look even older.

Fortunately, I don’t know any next-level cynics. Unless they’re all lying to me. Which is possible.