Julian Edelman spent a good chunk of the preseason sidelined, and the New England Patriots suffered yet another scare with him Thursday night.
Edelman started training camp on the non-football injury list with a broken thumb but returned to action after Week 2 of the preseason. He, in addition to Josh Gordon and Demaryius Thomas, got some reps in the preseason finale, but it looked for a moment that he reaggravated the injury.
After catching his first pass of the preseason, Edelman came up shaking his hand. He took his glove off and went to the sidelines to get it looked at by the trainer, and though he didn’t play again the rest of the night, he did stay on the bench.
On Friday morning, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport indicated that the injury isn’t expected to be serious.
“As far as Julian Edelman’s thumb goes, my understanding is that is not actually what he injured, so your worry on his thumb should be very low,” Rapoport said. “Yes, it looked a little scary … (but) my understanding is his thumb is fine and his hand that he injured is going to be fine. This is not a major worry for Julian Edelman. And to reinforce that fact, he didn’t go in and seek medical attention, he stayed on the sideline, did not seem to be in pain. A little scare, but my understanding is no major worry for the New England Patriots and for Edelman after last night.”
The Patriots’ wide receiver depth has increasingly gotten better over the preseason, so losing Edelman now would be far less of a gut-punch than it would have been, say, a month ago. But that appears to be a moot point, as all signs are pointing toward him being fine.
