These days, Julian Edelman and Tom Brady are more comfortable with each other than most married couples.
Once upon a time, however, their relationship was awkward as hell.
During a recent appearance on Peter King’s podcast, Edelman detailed his first interaction with the New England Patriots quarterback. And while it’s hard to imagine now, given his brash, confident personality, Edelman once acted like a nervous first-year at Hogwarts.
Here’s what he told King:
“I remember Tom walked in and I had my big ole 4-inch binder and we were going and he was walking through the doorway and all of a sudden I look up and he walks through and he goes, ‘Hey, I’m Tom.’ I almost dropped my book and I am like, ‘Holy smokes. It’s Tom Brady,’ I am a Bay Area kid. I was a big fan. And he goes, ‘Hey, Julian.’ He knew my name, too. He had his ol’ little grin on that he has. I dropped my book like, ‘Hey, Tom’ and you’re scrambling to meetings and stuff. As a rookie, you are in a new environment and you’re trying to study calculus with basic math knowledge. That is what you’re going through and then Tom Brady walks through the door. It was funny, but it was very a welcoming hello.”
Edelman also talked about the struggles of his rookie season.
“That first year was tough. It wasn’t just Tom. We had Randy Moss in the room. We had Wes Welker. We had Joey Galloway. We had Sam Aiken, who was a special teams guru and also a really good receiver. They traded for a guy, Greg Lewis. You’re sitting in this room with nine other guys playing the numbers game, like how many do they keep? You’re sitting there doing that so you automatically get into a mode of, ‘I need to sit here and study. I need to learn how to do this, watch these guys.’ You get into survival mode. It was a crazy year where you are not used to playing that long, you’re not used to the speed of the game. You’re not used to a lot of things, but you have to because if you don’t they are going to replace you.”
Edelman and Brady certainly have come a long way in their 10 years as teammates.
Winners of three Super Bowls together, the Patriots stars are among the greatest quarterback-receiver duos in NFL history.
