(SP) – Tom Brady sustained an injury to his throwing hand in practice this week that has kept him off the field as the AFC Championship Game approaches, and sources close to the team say the quarterback has been begging his hand to adopt the TB12 method to ensure its health.

“He keeps having the hand drink special water,” said a team insider. “He’s made a puppet out of his hand, with drawn-on eyes and everything, and then he uses his other hand to pour water into the injured hand’s mouth. But the water just goes through the hand-mouth and runs down his arm. Then he gets frustrated at his hand and yells: ‘Why won’t you drink?! Why won’t you embrace TB12?!’ So, yeah. He’s now officially insane. But he’s a hell of a quarterback when he’s healthy.”

Brady has received two opinions on his hand so far. His personal trainer, Alex Guerrero, says the hand can be 100-percent by game time “if it drinks water through it’s hand-mouth, is told a series of proprietary magical words and sleeps at night wrapped in magnets from Suriname.” Whereas the Patriots official team doctor has said: “Yeah, that shit’s broken.”

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick reportedly is not sure if Brady will play on Sunday.

“Part of him wants Tom to sit out so the Patriots can show they can win without him,” said a source. “Part of him wants Tom out there in excruciating pain because he thinks that would be funny to see. It will be a game time decision.”