New England Patriots: Tom Brady not worried about rust for Edelman
By Nick Ziegler
In Week 5, Julian Edelman will be making his return to the New England Patriots. Tom Brady isn’t worried about any potential rust.
The New England Patriots will be getting a big boost on a short week, as Julian Edelman will be making his season debut.
After serving his four-game suspension, Edelman will be playing in a regular season game for the first time since 2016. Due to a season-ending ACL surgery, Edelman was never available for the Patriots last season.
Since he has missed so much time, a bit of rust has to be expected for Edelman. Since he hasn’t been able to practice due to the suspension, Edelman coming back on a short week isn’t ideal. Tom Brady recently talked about possible rust and timing issues with Edelman. Here’s what Brady said about the return of Edelman to Zack Cox of NESN.com.
"“I think we’ve played so much football together,” Brady said Monday. “I really have no doubt where he’s going to be at, what he’s capable of. He’s been a great player for our team. I think everyone’s excited to have him back, and anytime you add great players, it’s going to help what we’re doing. We all welcome him back, and he’s excited, ready to go, and hopefully he can go out and play great. Hopefully, we can all go play great. We’re going to need it.”"
Getting Edelman back will be a huge boost for the Patriots coming into Week 5. With this being a short week, nobody will be feeling great that played last week. However, Edelman should be fresh and hungry to get back out there.
With Edelman back, the Patriots will have their primary slot receiver back and that will help Brady with his underneath passing. In four games with Edelman out, the Patriots have been using a lot of James White out of the backfield for the short passing.
Even though he has missed a lot of time, Edelman and Brady have a great chemistry that they should be able to pick up quickly. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Brady feature Edelman early on to get him some easy catches and get into the flow quickly.
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With the Patriots sitting at 2-2, this is once again a big game for them to get back over the .500 mark. As decent favorites at home, the Patriots should be able to move to 3-2. Assuming the offense is at full strength, it will be interesting to see how good the unit can look against a mediocre Colts defense.