FOXBORO, Mass. — It doesn’t sound like Julian Edelman plans to ease into the New England Patriots’ playoff opener despite sitting out for the last two months.
According to the Patriots receiver, there’s “no dipping the toe here. It’s just diving in.”
“I want to go full throttle regardless,” Edelman said Monday at Gillette Stadium. “So if it goes, it goes.”
“It,” of course, is the foot Edelman broke in the Patriots’ Week 10 win over the New York Giants. Edelman reportedly will wear a steel plate in his left shoe to “prevent flexing and refracturing” his injured foot. He has been sprinting and cutting in practice, but he won’t know if there’s any rust to knock off until kickoff Saturday against the Kansas City Chiefs.
“We’re going to try to make the situation as hard as possible in practice,” Edelman said. “Our coaches will do that, our training staff will do that. We’ll see where we’re at.”
Edelman shouldn’t have too much trouble regaining his chemistry with quarterback Tom Brady. He has been practicing for over a month now and has been putting in extra work with Brady.
“We do work a lot together,” Edelman said. “I know him, and he knows me, but we still got to work very hard this week to make up on the ground lost we didn’t have. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Edelman said the two months off the game field has “definitely” tried his patience.
“I’m kind of my worst enemy when it comes to that, trying to overpush things,” Edelman said. “We’ve had our staff work with me to keep me from hurting myself. I think we’ve handled it pretty decent.”
The Patriots’ offense hasn’t been the same with Edelman sidelined. The Pats have averaged 6.9 yards per play with Edelman on the field this season and just 4.7 yards per play without him. Brady completes 69 percent of his passes with Edelman and just 59.2 percent without him.
“You watch the film and take mental reps and apply what you would have done, how the play went,” said Edelman, who has continued to watch film while out. “There’s been a lot of that. I’ve watched a lot of film. You never go in and say, ‘I would have done something like that,’ because you can’t answer that question, you weren’t in that play. Every play is a different experience for everyone.”
Thumbnail photo via Timothy T. Ludwig/USA TODAY Sports Images
