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Julian Edelman has been away from football for over a year, and the New England Patriots legend is breaking down what caused him to end his career.
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Edelman had been struggling with knee issues leading up to his retirement in April 2021, but when speaking to Ryen Russillo, the former wide receiver said he decided to retire after attending a Patriots film session.
“Atrocious. That’s honestly why I retired,” Edelman said August 25 on The Ringer’s “The Ryen Russillo Podcast” about watching himself on film. “When you start looking old — it’s not even just the games, it’s the practices, the body language. I mean, I wanted to throw up. That’s why I had to retire.”
When Edelman retired, he said, he was 34 years old and opponents were not afraid to go up against him.
“When you’re a younger player — I remember — you play a couple guys, and they’re in their absolute prime when you’re still trying to figure things out,” Edelman said. “And then you figure things out, and it’s like four or five years later, and that guy that you still are battling who was a badass dude has diminished. That’s blood in the water. I’m going to embarrass him every time. I’m going to try to light him up, because I remember how hard it was and how he used to embarrass me.
“The blood was in the water,” he said. “Guys were going to come after me. I had to get out.”
What Does Edelman Think of the Current Patriots Offense?
Edelman also appeared on “The Rich Eisen Show,” mentioning that the Patriots offense has featured things he had not seen during his 11 years in New England.
“It’s going to be interesting,” he said on the August 16 episode of the show. “I watched that game, I watched the cut-ups, and a lot of the concepts are nothing that I’ve seen. A lot of them are very vanilla, which is very procedural with preseason. They want to throw vanilla stuff out there and see mano-a-mano — can the kid get open? Can he make the catch? Let’s not try to scheme anything up, but you know those are things I’ve never seen, and it’s going to be interesting.
“Josh McDaniels, he’s a really good play caller,” Edelman continued. “And we saw Josh McDaniels and Mac Jones work last year together and we had some great results. Now you’re going to see your biggest leap usually from your young quarterback year one to year two, because he’s going to know the system, he’s going to know the environment, the schedule, everything usually comes easier [in the] second year. But he’s going in with a completely different mindset at offensive coordinator, and now he has to learn how they’re going to call plays. They’ve got to learn what plays he likes.”
Does Edelman Think He Could Return to the NFL?
Even after that “atrocious” film session and guys preparing to go after Edelman, the Patriots legend still thinks he could make a comeback if called upon.
“I’ll tell you right now, if I had three weeks, three, maybe four, weeks — beginning of the season, absolutely not,” Edelman said of a comeback. “But if there’s a team vying for a playoff run, guy goes down. Could I get ready? I probably could.”