Remember when it looked like Tom Brady’s had one of those hands that a cartoon character tried to inflate while blowing air into his thumb?

Despite Brady consistently pooh-poohing the notion that anything was amiss and the Patriots not disclosing a hand injury, the images captured as he tried to slip the appendage into a warming device showed that the thing he uses to throw footballs was swollen.

And it wasn’t just a bruise. According to Albert Breer of NFL Network, Brady had ligament damage in his hand. While it healed without surgery, Brady had to play through it.

He did, and Brady did it well. Now, he stands 60 minutes away from his sixth Super Bowl appearance. Given the adversity that he and the team overcame this year, it could be his most impressive performance yet.