Former Patriots receiver Julian Edelman has caused a little bit of a stir with his comments on the I AM ATHLETE podcast backing Marty Bennett's displeasure with Jimmy Garoppolo not to play through injury in 2016.
“We go into Week 4 and, I guess, Jimmy was practicing,” Edelman said. “And then, you know, deciding not to play and Jacoby (Brissett) played with, no ligaments in the thumb, which you can’t do that as a quarterback, you can’t grip.
“A lot of guys got mad about it. A lot of guys got mad. I’m not gonna lie, I got mad about it. I sacrifice my body all day long, all day long. I was taking shots for this, numbing up that, ribs, broken ribs, shoulders, Grade 3, hanging on by limbs just to play, you know? I can understand why Marty thinks like that.”
But, I mean, who really cares at this point? Besides the fact that Edelman had the wrong injured shoulder (it was his throwing shoulder), everyone knows by now that Garoppolo is not an iron man. It was reported at the time that some inside the building, including the coaches, were a little irked that Garoppolo wasn't tougher and decided to make a business decision (he didn't want to put bad tape out there with this his only real shot at playing time before a possible trade in the summer of 2017 ... we know how that went).
It didn't deter Belichick from a) not trading Garoppolo in 2017, b) attempting to get him to sign a contract extension, and c) holding on to the QB until the last possible moment when his trade value was not his highest. So Belichick was just fine with Garoppolo's toughness.
The important Edelman quotes had to do with Mac Jones, the defense and why those Patriots were so good — and what that means for the future of the Patriots.
“If (Jones) strengthens up, and he uses last year for the starting point, and he doesn’t smell his own roses and he goes out and he gets better this year – because we ultimately see our biggest leaps from that Year 1 to Year 2 for that quarterback, I think he could be a good quarterback,” Edelman said. “He’s not there quite yet.”
What surprised me about this was Edelman didn't sound like he was all that enthused about Jones to this point. The receiver was basically saying, "Meh, he was fine. Has a chance to be good. We'll see what he does with it." Understand this, Edelman talks to a lot of people in the Patriots' organization, current and former. He knows what's going on inside the locker room and the QB room.
Now, it's not an indictment on Jones. And Edelman has always been Team Brady and is probably comparing Jones to No. 12 in some respects. No one is going to measure up to that after one season. But I did figure Edelman would sound a bit more impressed with Jones' rookie season. ... Not a good QB yet? A little surprised by that.
Edelman did hit the nail on the head when he talked about early Brady and how he needed a good defense to win like he did — something he's not sure the Patriots have.
“They weren’t tossing the ball out after the stadium. It was a defensive-built team,” Edelman said. “That’s the thing that I’m worried about with the Patriots. Is their defense gonna be there to allow Mac to have this slow progression into becoming what he becomes?”
That's one of the big questions on this team. No pass rush added to go with Matthew Judon. Just about a completely new linebacking corp. JC Jackson is gone, and there are a bunch of unknowns at cornerback. You also have to question whether the defensive coaching, especially if Belichick is needed more on offense, will push the right buttons.
All legitimate questions, and Edelman is right to be concerned. A year ago the defense didn't get enough stops to help the offense. Will it be better this year?
Also thought Edelman was insightful on what made the Patriots so successful.
“I think it roots from really just being accountable,” Edelman said. “When I got there, you had Tedy Bruschi, Tom Brady, Kevin Faulk, Troy Brown was always around. You had these guys that held you accountable. If you weren’t going up to their standards... like, the leaders are always working their asses off. They’re setting examples.
“Then you got young bucks, and if they’re not putting in that same effort, that same standard, they’re going to be humiliated and they probably won’t be there because they have that much say. There’s a locker room full of guys that know how to keep a good locker room and build that team. I would say, just accountability from top to bottom.”
The question is, do the Patriots still have that same type of leadership, especially without Dont'a Hightower? How many guys besides David Andrews is willing to get in a guy's face and tell him it's not good enough? Devin McCourty and Matthew Slater are great leaders, but they are more lead-by-example types. Bruschi, Brady, Faulk and Willie McGinest would not allow anything to slide on their watch — and they let the players know about it.
Someone needs to emerge at the second level of the defense. The Patriots think it's Ja'Whaun Bentley, but does he have the cache to motivate others in the front seven? Certainly Mac Jones took a step forward in leadership this offseason, and that's a must. He is owning the offense and he'll have to do more of that.
Or else some of Edelman's fears for this team will be realized.