Gamer Bradshaw has everyone's respect

Ahmad Bradshaw was asked about the cracked bone in his right foot on Friday afternoon.

"My foot's fine," he said.

He was asked again.

"I feel great right now," he said. "My injuries are no problem at all."

A third time.

"It's not about what I'm playing through," he said. "It's about giving your all."

The answers to those questions are what NFL defenders have been learning the last five seasons: that even with what must be excruciating pain from a stress fracture on the outside of his foot, it's hard to stop Bradshaw from getting to where he wants to go.

In this case, Bradshaw wants to get to the Super Bowl, and he doesn't want to be reminded of his ailment.

It's hard to know exactly how much Bradshaw is tolerating. He hardly ever lets on. He's often seen joking in the locker room or pacing antsily on the sideline during practices in which he is not allowed to participate because of injury.

"You never really know how much pain he's really in unless you see him in the training room or early in the morning when he comes stumbling in," said wide receiver Victor Cruz, wishing he could find the words to describe the running back limping along on what essentially is a blown-out tire. "You can tell he's in some pain. He comes in, he goes straight to that training room and all the guys come in and start working on him immediately."

Eventually, though, even Bradshaw's desire to avoid the questions about his foot can have its forward progress stopped and the whistle blown. In a moment of reflection, Bradshaw considered how long it has been since he was pain-free.

"I don't remember," he said. "I've been dealing with my feet, my ankles through college, now my feet [again]. I don't know if it's just the way I run. I'd say it's the nature of the game."

Bradshaw had three surgical procedures after the 2009 season to insert screws in stress fractures in both feet and clean up some of those ankle issues that have been bugging him for years. On Oct. 30 of this season, against the Dolphins, he re-cracked the bone in his right foot. He came out of the game, looked at the fracture on an X-ray, and returned to the game. He can only imagine what it must be like to go into a game feeling 100 percent.

"I pray for it every day," he said. "Being a running back in this league, I don't think I'll ever be that healthy again. That's just the nature of the game. You just have to try to stay fresh and stay healthy as much as you can."

He's certainly gained the respect and admiration of his teammates and coaches. In a week in which Eli Manning was touted for his toughness after taking a couple dozen whopping hits from the 49ers, Bradshaw was extolled for the heart he brings and has been bringing since he came back to the lineup Dec. 4, a month after reinjuring his foot (the first game he missed was the regular-season win over the Patriots on Nov. 6).

"I always told him he has one of the biggest hearts on this football team," defensive captain Justin Tuck said. "Considering what he went through this year with the injuries to his feet and things like that, he's not healthy right now, but he still continues to go out there and work his butt off every Sunday. Players on this team who know what he went through this year with his body, it's very inspirational to watch."

"He's a physical force," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. "He wants the ball. He's very aggressive about it. He has a toughness about him that everyone on our team recognizes, not only because of the things that have happened to him and he's played through, but it's the way in which he plays."

Bradshaw stiff-armed those kinds of sentiments.

"Every time I go out on the field, I give it my all," he said. "I love this game more than anything, this team also. They get my full effort every time I touch the field . . . I'd do anything to be out there with these guys. There are a lot of guys who play hurt, there are a lot of different injuries. It's just the nature of the game."

Defenders may expect to get run over or flattened by 6-4, 264-pound running back Brandon Jacobs, Bradshaw's closest friend on the team. But Bradshaw is six inches and 50 pounds shy of Jacobs' stature and he still packs the kind of wallop his bull-bodied buddy does.

Bradshaw ran for 74 physical yards against the 49ers' No. 1 rushing defense in the NFC Championship Game, the most he's run for in any game since he returned from injury. It took him 20 carries to get those tough yards and he had no runs of more than 9 yards. In overtime, after the Giants recovered a fumble on a punt, he ran three times for 18 mucky yards to set up the game-winning field goal.

A week earlier, his long run set up Eli Manning's TD pass to Hakeem Nicks just before halftime against the Packers.

Bradshaw hasn't scored a touchdown in the playoffs, but his runs set up the two most important scores of the last month.

Tuck said he heard one of the 49ers' defensive backs say this about Bradshaw: He's a power back in a scatback's body. "It is interesting to watch how many times he falls forward," Tuck said.

Guard Chris Snee said Jacobs and Bradshaw both are physical runners. "I've been hit by both of those guys, whether it be in the back or the side," he said. "Not fun . . . It hurts."

Probably not as much as it hurts Bradshaw. He said he likely won't need surgery on his foot, just rest. But he practiced Friday just so he could see some of the blitzes the Patriots are apt to send on third down.

"He's a tough guy, as tough as they come," Snee said. "I don't think that's gotten enough credit throughout the course of the year, what he deals with every day and what he plays through on Sundays. And he does it without complaint, does it with just fire and passion for the game.

"That's tough to deal with, what he's dealing with."

Now it's the Patriots' turn to deal with him.