Julian Edelman reveals Mac Jones got mad at him for one of his takes
Julian Edelman reveals Mac Jones got mad at him for one of his takes originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Julian Edelman was a Hall of Fame-caliber player for the New England Patriots, and like many former NFL stars, he's now a member of the media.
Now that he's retired, Edelman has a little more freedom in how much he can express his opinions on certain players and teams. Players don't like to be too honest about opponents when they're still playing because it can provide extra motivation and bulletin board material.
But when you're retired, who cares if someone gets made about a take?
Edelman was a guest on Barstool Sports podcast Pardon My Take this week, and he was asked if any current players have gotten mad about a take he's had as a media member.
"Mac Jones got mad at me… he texted me like, 'What's up. How are you bro?'… It was literally right after the thing I said," Edelman explained. "I was like, 'I'm good man. I'm taking my daughter to school. How are you?'"
Edelman didn't elaborate much beyond that. He didn't say what the take was that got Jones mad.
(Edelman talks about the exchange at the 2:24:57 mark in the video below.)
Edelman has been honest in his criticism of Jones in recent years.
The three-time Super Bowl champion was a guest on NBC Sports Boston's Patriots Talk Podcast earlier this month and had some candid thoughts on Jones' demise in New England.
"I mean, last year was definitely a tough situation," Edelman told host Tom E. Curran. "But I think of it like this. If you're a guy, you figure your way out how to make plays. If you're a guy in this league, you do that. I mean, look at Justin Herbert. I know this year is particularly worse than what he's been having. But, I mean, the guy found out he was playing and starting his first game 20 minutes before the game, and he went in and became productive and built something, and he's made plays. You've seen confidence when you shouldn't probably have had the confidence. So I don't know. If you're a guy, you make plays.
" … It's a tough situation. I feel bad for the kid. It was tough but he didn't help himself with how he acted in a lot of ways. You can't follow up a guy that was notoriously known to take hard coaching (Tom Brady), who did it for 20 years, and yeah there was friction here or there or whatever, but we never really heard about it out of Tom's camp. We never heard about that. …
"When you go out and you're shushing up the coaches -- and I don't want to sound like an old guy, like an old-school guy, but that's not what you want to see from a starting quarterback. A guy grabbing dudes' ballsacks, kicking a guy, like, that's not gonna help you when these kinds of conversations come up."
🔊 Patriots Talk: Julian Edelman on Mac, Bill and what’s next for the Patriots | Listen & Subscribe | Watch on YouTube
Jones was benched at halftime of the Patriots' loss to the New York Giants in Week 12, and he hasn't seen the field since. Bailey Zappe started each of the last three games.
The offense has looked better with Zappe under center, particularly in the first halves of games, but the Patriots still rank dead last in scoring at 13.3 points per game.
Barring an injury to Zappe, we might have seen the last snap Jones takes as a quarterback for the Patriots. We now have two seasons of average or lackluster play from him. Sure, the Patriots haven't made his job easy with the weird coaching setup last season or the lack of high-end talent at the skill positions around him.
But we have a good enough sample size to know that he's most likely not a franchise quarterback. Luckily for the Patriots, they might be able to find that type of player rather quickly if they land a top-three pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
