Untold Julian Edelman stories before Patriots Hall of Fame induction

Before he became a Patriots Hall of Famer, Julian Edelman was a football footnote.

A seventh-round pick and college quarterback trying out a new position in the pros.

But over 12 years in New England, Edelman changed.

And so did the Patriots.

As Edelman developed into one of the best wide receivers in franchise history, he helped power three Super Bowl titles. He secured an all-time catch during Super Bowl LI and earned MVP of Super Bowl LIII. He became a local legend, a household name.

Amid all the accolades, teammates came to learn the real Edelman.

A ballbuster. An obsessive worker. A living, breathing standard for how to fight teammates in practice and compete in games.

So, forget the player you might have known as “the Squirrel.”

In the words of his ex-teammates, this was “Jules.”

Balls off the wall

All these years later, David Andrews can still hear the rubber echo.

As teammates from 2015-20, Andrews typically walked into the Patriots’ facility around 6 a.m., to the sound of Edelman working through one of his favorite drills within earshot of the locker room.

During the drill, Edelman stood facing a wall with his knees bent and arms outstretched at either side, while an equipment manager, standing behind him, lobbed tennis balls one at a time over his shoulder and at the wall. Edelman tried to catch the balls — unseen until they hit the wall — before they hit the ground.

“I think (Edelman) had to pay for like nine Tommy John surgeries for all the equipment managers’ elbows he (hurt) making them throw to him,” Andrews cracked.

The balls ricocheted at all angles, testing Edelman’s hand-eye coordination and reaction time. He caught thousands upon thousands. Andrews came to hate the drill.

“To the day I die, the sound of tennis balls hitting cinder-block walls will be ingrained in my head every morning,” he said. “I didn’t even need coffee the first couple years of my career, because I just got my head beat in listening to those tennis balls.”

Edelman’s drill work eventually paid off on the game’s greatest stage.

Andrews didn’t make the connection immediately when Edelman saved a deflected pass with a finger-tip grab in traffic during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LI against the Falcons, AKA the most famous catch of his career. But in time and reflection, Andrews sure did.

“If (Edelman) didn’t make that play, the game was over,” he said. “Thank God hearing all those tennis balls was worth it.”

Running in walkthroughs

Early in his career, Edelman took a new attitude to the Patriots’ walkthrough practices.

They were, let’s say, not for him.

Half-speed was the slowest Edelman would train, according to several teammates who watched him buzz through the practices that Bill Belichick otherwise led at a glacial pace to ensure every player knew where to be and what to do on every play. Walkthroughs are common to every team across the NFL, particularly the day before games.

Less common is the receiver who won’t comply with his coach.

“It’d always be funny to see new people who would come to the team or the first walkthrough of the year, and would see this dude running, literally cutting at five yards on his routes, doing all this stuff,” said James White. “They’d ask, ‘Why is he doing that?’ But that was his routine, and he always stuck with it.”

Pats safety Kyle Dugger remembers his first walkthrough with Edelman, a practice in training camp of his rookie season in 2020. Dugger’s job on several plays was to take on a block thrown by a wide receiver. In several cases, that was Edelman, which meant they had to lightly grab each other’s chest plate to simulate their assignments.

Except every time they got close, Edelman had other ideas.

“He wouldn’t let me put my hands on him,” Dugger said. “So whenever I put my hands out, he would grab my hand or hold his up to get in the way. And he had like a smirk walking back to the huddle, kind of waiting to see my reaction. And I never really understood why he did that. I think he was just testing me because I was a rookie. But I thought that was funny.”

A caring call

On the morning of March 13, news broke that the Patriots had decided to release Andrews, one of their longest-tenured and most respected players.

Minutes later, Andrews’ phone rang. It was Edelman.

The two had remained friends since Edelman’s retirement in 2021, but weren’t terribly close. Andrews remembered looking at his phone in surprise and taking the call, which lasted about 30 minutes. Text messages streamed into his phone amid other notifications.

Andrews didn’t stop to answer a single one, not until he was done hearing from an old friend about life, football and what comes next.

“I think him calling me shows what kind of teammate and person he is. He cares about people,” Andrews said. “Like I said, it’s not like me and Julian were best friends. That wasn’t a call I was expecting.”

He continued: “It was mostly him giving me advice (about) different things. Again, at kind of a weird time for someone like that to reach out to you. But it meant so much. And granted, some of that advice was only advice Julian could deliver in certain ways…”

How so?

Drunk uncle

Well, according to Andrews, this is how.

“Julian gives advice to you like your crazy, drunk uncle at the party. Where you’re like, ‘Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of good advice, but I just don’t know if that’s the way I’m going to go about it,'” he said. “Or you’ve gotta see through the weeds of his advice sometimes. Like, your crazy uncle tells you to do something, and you’re kind of like, I probably should do it, but I don’t know if I should do it that way.”

“Like, let me civilize this a little.”

Practice punches

In 2017, the Patriots signed ex-Bills cornerback Stephon Gilmore to a five-year, $65 million deal in free agency with $40 million guaranteed.

The deal sent shockwaves through the league and inside their building. In the first practice Gilmore participated as a Patriot — yet another walkthrough — he lined up across from Edelman who had a few choice words about his $40 million guaranteed.

You could almost hear Devin McCourty roll his eyes as he re-told the story.

“Everybody was like, ‘Ok, here we go. Jules is really gonna throw out the guy’s contract the first day we get out here?’ And then, sure enough, either the second or third day at training camp, they both get kicked out from fighting in the back of the end zone in a red zone period, because (Gilmore) was like a quiet version of Jules,” McCourty said.

“Once he got on the field, (Gilmore) wouldn’t give up any catches in walkthrough, which Tom (Brady) and Jules hated because he’s breaking up their passes. And so that was Jules. It was confrontation. It was being an ass—. But like I always tell people, he was that guy, but he was your ass—. Playing against him in practice, you knew he’s gonna do tricky little things, but you also knew that that would be a difference in games, and that you were happy he was on your side.”

Andrews agreed.

“Every single day, it was on. And if you weren’t on, he was probably going to let you know about it,” Andrews said. “And now, sometimes I think that went a little too far.”

Gilmore, it should be noted, was hardly Edelman’s only sparring partner in those days.

“When we would just be out there trying to feel good in Friday walkthroughs, we’d get a five-minute break while we’re trying to be in the cleanest rhythm of practice because Julian was fighting somebody. A practice-squad guy or somebody. But that’s just who he was. And he was always on. He was always ready to go.”

Back to QB

In September 2016, as Brady served a suspension for his alleged involvement in Deflategate, the Patriots were down to just one quarterback heading into a Week 3 showdown with the Texans on Thursday Night Football.

Brady’s backup, Jimmy Garoppolo, had been injured the Sunday before, leaving only rookie Jacoby Brissett to throw passes in practice and potentially against Houston.

According to Andrews, the Patriots were in “scramble mode” figuring out how to run offense through Brissett and, if he got injured in the game, a new backup. That backup was Edelman, who needed just one rep in practice before he started chastising Andrews like he was a 10-year veteran quarterback under center.

“We had a catch-all plan with Jules in case something happened with him running some plays. I’ll never forget it,” Andrews said. “This dude comes into the huddle, calls the play, gets to the line and (makes) the worst snap count I’ve ever heard.”

“(He had) the worst hand placement for our under-center snap I’ve ever felt. My third-grade teacher — ah, I can’t say that. But whoever you want to say would’ve had better placement, that’s right. But he blamed me that my snaps were bad. And that was Julian 101. Because it was so funny.”

“You could just see him wanting to be in control of the offense, and just none of us could take him seriously. He’s trying to teach me how to snap the football. And I’m like, ‘Bud. I’ve been broken in for a year and a half now by Tom Brady. I know what I’m doing.'”

No one spared

As much as Edelman looked up to Brady, as a fellow Bay Area native and lifelong football fan, he eventually began to treat the legendary quarterback like most other teammates.

“(Edelman) and Gronk are probably the only two dudes that would get after Tom a little bit, as far as jokes and everything,” White said. “Or on game day, he’s probably the only one that would say something to Tom, as far as trying to get us going.”

In the latter years of Brady’s tenure, Edelman would cut him down with cracks and jokes for all to hear inside the locker room. Even Brady’s new shoes, pairs of HOKA brand sneakers, became a target.

“Tom was wearing those elevated sneakers, and I know they’re in stores now, and everybody wears them. But when Tom first came in with them, Julies would go after him for wearing them with jeans and all that. Like, I mean, just kill him. Kill him,” McCourty said. “And I always thought that was so unique because coming in everybody else was like, ‘That’s Brady. Oh wow.’

“And for Jules, I think he started like that. And quickly realized that, ‘I can make fun of him’.”

Belichick wasn’t spared, either.

“Bill came into a meeting one time with either a divisional championship shirt or some shirt like that. And Jules raises his hand, kind of smirking already. ‘And he goes, ‘I mean, Bill, what the f— are we doing? Like, shouldn’t we take that s— off?’ And everybody starts dying laughing.”

Though the jokes did go both ways, particularly after Edelman established his “JE11” brand, which clearly mimicked Brady’s.

“Everybody was like, ‘Dude. (Brady) has TB12. Like, you’re gonna just straight go JE11?” McCourty remembered. “Come on.'”

Always eager

Early in their careers, McCourty and Edelman were special teams neighbors.

Both started on the Patriots’ kickoff team, with McCourty taking the outside spot closest to the sideline and Edelman one inside of him. Edelman’s job was to contain any returner who might break outside instead of pursuing the kickoff as fast and recklessly as possible downfield. But knowing how hungry Edelman was to make the team and make an impact, McCourty cut a deal with him.

“I would just tell him, ‘Go make a play.’ And the excitement and smile on his face knowing he’s supposed to contain and keep everything inside, but he can trust Devin to tell me that, because (the coaches) loved me. And would go and blow up plays,” McCourty said. “And I was just telling him, ‘I’m going to make you right.'”

“And I think that’s the side that a lot of people don’t think about because of who (Edelman) ended up becoming. But how he started and grinded was always special to me because that guy on kickoff who really wanted to be catching balls from Brady, he still ran down there and gave it all he had.”

Fast friends

By the end of their playing careers, it became well-known Edelman and Danny Amendola were close. Perhaps the closest pair on the Patriots.

But in the days after the Patriots originally signed Amendola to a free-agent contract in March 2013, Edelman was fuming.

“I know they ended up becoming best buds, but make no mistake about it: Jules was f—ing pissed when Amendola got signed for all of that money. And I think Bill (Belichick) knew that,” McCourty said. “Jules was more pissed just by the thought of them bringing somebody else in. It was almost like a slap in the face.”

And yet it took just weeks for them to connect as teammates, then friends. McCourty, as he often did, had a front-row seat.

“I remember being on a train with them in the offseason, and I was going to New Jersey, they were going to New York. They were in the back of the train, and I mean, just wasted. Wasted and having a good time. Which was so cool to see. But I still remember when we signed (Amendola), you could just tell his whole energy change for like, a week.

“That’s Jules. He’s not going to hide that.”

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