The mystery doctor who devised a plan to wrap New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s thumb in black KT Tape before Sunday’s AFC Conference Championship game was world famous orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache, SportTechie has learned.
At the time, a KT Tape marketing brand manager, Jacki Cassady, remembers a doctor approaching her and asking very specific questions about the use of the kinesiology tape for an unorthodox wrapping near the base of a thumb. The doctor referred to the New England Patriots but gave few clues as to the precise need for the taping.
ElAttrache, who reconstructed Brady’s torn ACL in 2008, is a close friend of the quarterback as well as his personal doctor. His assistant taking the photos was Teri Chavarria, who said ElAttrache was already quite familiar with KT Tape in his other work with athletes and devised his plan for Brady’s thumb while at the booth. (Later shown a photo of ElAttrache, Cassady confirmed he was the doctor.)
“He was figuring out how he would use it,” Chavarria said. “That’s why he used it on his own hand…He positioned it in different ways to see what would work.”
ElAttrache, who was in surgery and unavailable for comment, is the team doctor for the Los Angeles Dodgers — and course chairman of the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society conference — as well as the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams.
He also serves on the board of directors at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Southern California, is one of the leading practitioners of Tommy John surgery (which repairs torn elbow ligaments in baseball pitchers) and has operated on any number of superstar athletes, once operating on both Kobe Bryant and Zack Greinke in the same weekend.
“I think it’s safe to say that I will never root for another person against Tom Brady,” ElAttrache told the Los Angeles Times in 2016. “I’ve lost that ability to take in a game normally. My emotion and my heart since 2008 is to see him win. I’ve taken care of a lot of people who play for teams he’s played against, and I never root against those people. But I always root for Tom. Generally, that means that his team wins.”
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“At a pretty critical moment in my career, he was someone who was right there by my side,” Brady told the Times for that story. “I’m forever grateful to him and his commitment to me, and we’re lifelong friends because of that.”