ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who helped break the story of Julian Edelman’s pending four-game suspension, just shed more light on the positive performance-enhancing drug test that reportedly led to Edelman’s ban.
During a Friday morning interview with WEEI’s “Kirk & Callahan,” Schefter said he believes the New England Patriots wide receiver tested positive within the last month and that the “overwhelming majority of the Patriots organization did not know anything about this.”
“Well the one thing I can tell you is I think that it’s relatively recently that people found out about it,” Schefter said, as transcribed by WEEI.com. “I don’t think this is something that happened late last season, early this offseason. I think it was in the past month or so that the test came back positive to the NFL and the Patriots.
“There weren’t a lot of people that knew about it. I know because when I reached out to a handful of people, nobody had any knowledge of it initially. Obviously, it was a very closely guarded piece of information, and again, I don’t think it was something that dates back a long time. Now he’s got this situation — it is under appeal still.”
If Edelman, who missed all of last season with a torn ACL, loses his appeal, he will be forced to sit out games against the Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins. He also would be barred from the Patriots’ facility until Week 5 and prohibited from having contact with team personnel.
“As it was explained to me, it’s hard to win an appeal,” Schefter said. “Most people don’t win an appeal, but he’s going to go in and argue whatever he’s going to argue, and we’ll see because the system is not infallible. But you have a guy that has had, as I was told, hundreds of tests and never tested positive before. In this particular case, the test came back positive. Right now, it’s four games unless he can present compelling evidence otherwise.”
