What is Julian Edelman’s legacy?
First things first: he’s not a Hall of Famer
Welcome to a special edition of the Post Route. This timely Tuesday edition will run instead of Wednesday’s so that we can talk about the newly-retired Julian Edelman … and whether he’s overrated, underrated, or given just the right amount of reverence.
Julian Edelman isn’t the best draft pick of Bill Belichick’s career; that honor goes to Tom Brady. The fact he’s even in the conversation is a testament to Edelman’s NFL career.
On Monday, the Patriots announced that career was free to go on without him. New England released their postseason hero after 12 seasons and three Super Bowl wins, ending their working relationship after Edelman failed an offseason physical. Less than an hour later, the 34-year-old announced his retirement from the game.
Unlike Brady’s other notable top wideouts, Edelman’s entire career was spent in Foxborough. He came into the league as a seventh-round pick who’d spent his college career throwing passes at Kent State (he had one career NCAA catch. It went for 11 yards). Four years of in-week practice and gameday special teams and gadget-play reps molded him into a 1,000-yard wideout in year five. From 2013 to 2019 Edelman averaged 102 catches, 1,117 yards, and six touchdowns per 16 games. He won three world championships in that span and played in four Super Bowls despite having very little wideout help around him on the depth chart.
That makes him a lock of the Patriots’ Hall of Fame. Does he deserve better?
The case that we’re underestimating Edelman
Edelman was prolific against defenses that often knew either he or Rob Gronkowski were getting the ball any given down. His crisp routes and connection with Brady pushed him to 620 regular season catches and three 1,000-yard seasons. He added nearly 2,000 more yards of field position as a punt returner, housing four of those returns in the process.
He was the perfect transition from Troy Brown. Brown was a jack-of-all-trades slot receiver who served as the security blanket for the first half of Brady’s Patriot career. Edelman was the same guy for the back end, even earning some defensive snaps in a strapped secondary. Few players were more versatile for bigger teams over the past decade than Brady’s top wideout.
If this were all there were to Edelman’s career we’d likely drop him off in the Jerricho Cotchery/Pierre Garcon pile. But that would be discounting his greatest moments as a Patriot.
Namely that he completely ruled in the postseason.
From 2013 to 2018 Edelman’s teams went 11-2 in the playoffs. His average output in that span was a 9.6-catch, 122-yard game -- the rough equivalent of a 154-catch, 1,945-yard season … only against the best competition the NFL could muster.
The only player in NFL history with more playoff receiving yards is Jerry Rice. He had six different 100 yard performances in the postseason. He averaged more than 11 yards per punt return when the games mattered most. He was named MVP of Super Bowl 53. He did this to the Falcons:
And this to the Ravens:
Seventh-round picks aren’t supposed to have this kind of career. After a long learning curve, Edelman became one of the greatest players in Patriots history. He ends his career second only to Wes Welker when it comes to career receptions in Foxborough. In three Super Bowl wins he had 24 catches for 337 yards and a touchdown. Few receivers have ever been so useful in the clutch.
The case that Edelman is, if anything, overrated
Edelman missed 29 games in that legendary stretch from ‘13 to ‘19. He blanked the entire 2017 season due to a torn ACL in the preseason. When he came back he drew a four-game suspension for violating the league’s PED policy. He played a full 16 games three times in 13 years.
His production was inseparable from Brady’s greatness. He was a jack of all trades but master of none, and the lack of demonstrably dominant stats led him to zero Pro Bowl nods and not a single All-Pro selection. Pro Football Reference’s Hall of Fame monitor, which looks solely at the dried ink on his stat sheets rather than the timeliness of his postseason performances, rates him as the 108th best receiver in league history behind luminaries like Muhsin Muhammad, Derrick Mason, Eric Moulds, and (deep sigh) Plaxico Burress.
Edelman wasn’t even the best scrappy slot receiver of the Brady era. Wes Welker played half the seasons Edelman did in New England yet still owns the franchise record for receptions (627) and ranks second behind Stanley Morgan for most receiving yards by a wideout (7,459). And sure, Welker didn’t win any Super Bowls as a Patriot (or in general), but he still averaged more postseason catches per game than the man who took his place atop Tom Brady’s wishlist (6.8 vs. 6.2).
Danny Amendola had more postseason touchdowns as a Patriot than Edelman.
Edelman certainly belongs in the Hall of Very Good, but there’s a logjam of more worthy wideouts pushing him to the back of the line when it comes to the Hall of Fame. Only four receivers currently enshrined made it without a single All-Pro performance. Every single HoF wideout has at least three Pro Bowl honors to his name.
Edelman’s postseason resume may bend the rules for him, but he’d have to shatter the current standard to join that exclusive club. And if Welker doesn’t make it, well, that’s gonna make it reallllll tough for another top Brady target to earn his gold jacket.
What happens to the Patriots now?
Edelman was supposed to play a role in the post-Brady Patriots. Instead, he played only six games after his stalwart quarterback decamped for Tampa.
His departure opens up a larger role for Jakobi Meyers, another former college quarterback who fell to the Patriots as the draft waned (in this case, after it had run out entirely; Meyers was an undrafted free agent). Meyers worked well in the slot and in mid-range situations for Cam Newton’s low-impact passing attack last year. His 59-catch, 729 yard season should be a foundation from which he builds as Edelman’s heir apparent.
New England’s free agent splurges on Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne also help mitigate Edelman’s departure. There’s also 2019 first round pick N’Keal Harry, who’s been mostly a disaster as a Patriot but does have the raw tools to be a useful starter if he can make them all work at once.
That’s not awful depth, but there’s a distinct lack of a WR1 alpha-type in that group. Edelman’s greatest strength was as a player who stood at the top of his quarterback’s progressions in big situations -- and often that was all Brady needed to see. Nearly two thirds of his catches resulted in either first downs or touchdowns.
There’s no one among the Pats’ wideouts who can match that efficiency -- though Meyers and his 63 percent conversion rate comes close. Instead, Cam Newton (or rookie quarterback X … Justin Fields perhaps?) and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels may have to opt for their brand new high-priced pair of tight ends to carry the bulk of the team’s meat-and-potatoes passing.
This won’t be a bad thing! Newton struggled in 2020 behind a depth chart with few usable deep threats and a litany of wideouts and tight ends who struggled to create space in the crowded intermediate range. There was little space for playmaking when safeties, undeterred by Damiere Byrd’s ineffective go routes and not tasking with doubling anyone in particular, swarmed toward the ball with relative impunity.
Now they’ve got Agholor, who averaged 15.5 aerial yards per target and 18.7 yards per catch to keep that over-the-top coverage honest. They’ve got Bourne, a shifty presence near the line of scrimmage who gained nearly five yards after the reception every time he caught the ball last year. And, most importantly, they’ve got a battering inside-out tight end tandem that can excise concerns over the team’s lack of a true top dog WR.
Jonnu Smith’s athleticism and versatility will allow New England to motion him across its offensive sets, springing him out to the slot and potentially even a spot near the sideline to create havoc in opposing secondaries. Hunter Henry can settle in as a more traditional in-line tight end -- while he’s not the force of nature Rob Gronkowski is, he suffered only three blown blocks in 241 rushing snaps with the Chargers last fall. This, along with the presence of 2020 third round picks Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene, means there will be an abundance of two-TE sets for the Pats. This is a wonderful way to take the pressure off a questionable receiving corps.
Henry will draw defenders downfield in the seam, allowing Smith -- whose average depth of target as a Titan was only 5.4 yards while his average catch went for 11.4 -- to make easy catches in his wake and then roast linebackers with his run-after-catch ability. Agholor’s job is to keep defenses from cheating up to the line of scrimmage too close to stop it.
Meyers will fill Edelman’s old post. Bourne will have the opportunity to thrive in soft zone windows created by the higher-profile players around him to make a questionable quarterback look better … just like he did with the 49ers. Harry, ah, well, he’s an expensive lottery ticket right now, but he’s also big enough at 6’4” and 225 pounds to be a difference maker as a possession receiver (and please, let him use that body to block out cornerbacks because lord knows he’s not beating them one-on-one unless he’s made some drastic changes from 2020).
There’s no perfect way to replace one of the most important wide receivers in franchise history, but the Patriots came into the offseason knowing they had to try. New England’s passing game is in better shape than it was last year, even without Edelman in the lineup.
At least until the playoffs roll around. -- CD