Some players would do incredible things to achieve excellence in their sport. Football players are no exception. From Jerry Rice’s brutal workouts to Patrick Mahomes’ jawdroping blindfolded drills. However, if Brandon Bolden is to be believed, few are more extreme than Julian Edelman.
Most of us identify the six-time NFL champion New England Patriots with one name: Tom Brady. But even though he is the GOAT, Brady didn’t win those championships alone – there were players around him who made history in their own right, and Edelman was one of them.
The wide receiver played his entire career for the Pats and left behind a legacy of 620 receptions, 6,822 yards, and 36 touchdowns. But how did a 5-10 quarterback not invited to the NFL Combine become one of the best receivers in the NFL and MVP of Super Bowl LIII? Brandon Bolden just revealed the secret.
The secret to Julian Edelman’s success
Bolden shared a locker room with Edelman on the Patriots between 2012 and 2017, so he knows what he’s talking about when he says that “he [Edelman] would come up with the wildest sh*t” when it came to training. The retired running back recalled that Edelman “did make catches like that because he practiced catches like that.”
Speaking on the Raw Room podcast, Bolden revealed that one of his former teammate’s favorite training methods was to stand on a balance ball and have playing cards thrown to him, which he would try to catch.
Another Edelman drill used tennis balls. “He’d toss tennis balls to the side and then, once they get ’bout ten tennis balls, they gon’ put all out a card and he’d catch it. So, when I say I’ve seen him do sh*t like that, I mean that! He really do sh*t like that!”
Edelman’s greatest catch
While the former Ken State Golden Flash is remembered for many spectacular catches, perhaps the most incredible was the one he made in Super BowlLI. Brady fired the ball toward the middle of the field but an opponent deflected it; keeping an eye on the rebound, Edelman caught the ball between the defender’s legs, while two others threw themselves at him.
Swarmed, Edelman lost control of the ball for a second, but he caught it again just before it touched the ground, giving the Pats a valuable first down. That’s what Bolden meant when he said Edelman was capable of the wildest things because he practiced the wildest things. Credit where credit is due.
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