As a New England Patriots fan, I am less than thrilled to see pictures of a gimpy Tom Brady in New York's West Village with a walking cast on his right foot. On the other hand, given how the Patriots shroud everything, particularly their injuries, in secrecy, it's hard to imagine that the teams would allow Brady to wander around enemy territory--schlepping a potted plant and navigating the stairs at the apartment house of his girlfriend, Giselle Bundchen--if the injury were truly serious and threatened his Super Bowl status. In that case, he would be behind close doors, off his foot with non-stop therapy at his disposal while Boston's finest physicians contemplated some kind of miracle surgical procedure a la the stitch job that allowed Curt Schilling to pitch--the famed "bloody sock" game--in the 2004 A.L. Championship against the Yankees.

About the only certainty regarding his injury is that all subsequent information on it will be at best dubious and more likely spurious. Still, inevitably, the saga of Brady's foot (and Bundchen) is far more interesting than the rest of the standard journalistic overkill to which we will be subjected for the next 12 days: the offensive lineman whose second cousin once removed is in Baghdad; the defensive back whose grandmother is, at 83, going for a college degree; the running back who dreamed of being a jock until he grew four inches and put on 40 pounds his freshman year of high school.

On the other hand, if Brady, who has started 124 consecutive games for the Patriots since Drew Bledsoe was injured in the second game of the 2001 season, is seriously injured and unable to go in Glendale on Feb. 3, it would result one of the most remarkable quarterback stories in Super Bowl history. Who could envision the circumstances in which the Super Bowl would be the first start for a quarterback since high school? That would be exactly the situation for Matt Cassel, who has thrown a grand total of 39 passes in three seasons as a backup to Brady. That meagre number happens to be six more passes than he threw in four years at USC, where he backed up a pair of Heisman Trophy winners, Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart.

Our few glimpses of Cassel here have not inspired great confidence. A tall, nimble quarterback, he looks more dangerous running the ball than passing it. He relieved Brady in an early-season romp over Miami, promptly threw an interception and didn't return to the game. His most memorable appearance was in relief of Brady in the final, meaningless game of the 2005 season. Cassel went 11 for 20 for 168 yards and two TDS, the last coming on the final play of the game to bring the Pats within a two-point conversion of tying the Dolphins. He then showed he could follow orders. The Pats clearly had no taste for the tie and overtime and Cassel's pass for the conversion went about 30 yards over the receiver's head. He then showed he could follow the company line, when he insisted that the pass had slipped.

Remarkably, the biggest game Cassell has ever played in to date was not even a football game. Back in 1994 his Northridge, California baseball team reached the finals of the Little League World Series--and lost to Maracaibo, Venezuela