Julian Edelman calls suspension “the toughest time” of his life
Julian Edelman opened up on his ACL injury and subsequent four-game suspension for PEDs, calling it “the toughest time” of his life.
Patriots receiver Julian Edelman has been in the news a lot of late.
He’s promoting a new Showtime sports documentary of which he’s the subject. He’s embracing his new role as an older mentor for some of his younger teammates – including first-round draft pick N’Keal Harry, especially. He’s even reflecting back on retired teammate Rob Gronkowski and their time together, lovingly referring to No. 87 as “a big old teddy bear” who never had a bad day while with the Pats.
Edelman is also opening up about one of the darker periods of his life. It’s all-too-easy to forget that the veteran receiver had to overcome quite a deal of hardship before his triumphant showing in Super Bowl 53. Yes, he won Super Bowl MVP honors and now seemingly sits atop the world… but not so very long ago, he was at the very bottom of a deep, dark valley in his life.
“It was a low time,” Edelman recently told Jim Miller on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “You’re already battling mentally if you can do it like you did it.”
He’s referring, of course, to his ability to make a complete recovery from the torn ACL that robbed him of the entire 2017 season.
"“And then all of a sudden you have this (suspension), you’re dealing with this, and then you’re dealing with everyone outside of your life and what people are saying and dealing with and you can’t really get too involved into because you’re ultimately trying to get yourself back to playing football. It’s not like you’re 100 percent going out here and dealing with all these things, and you’re fine. You still have a task at hand, and that was one of the biggest parts of my journey back — one of the toughest times where I really had to compartmentalize with how to deal with my injury, my suspension, with being a balanced family member and getting back from my injury. And that was a very tough time. . . . It was honestly — it was probably the toughest time of my life at that point.”"
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While he doesn’t go into details or specifics with what substance he took that caused the positive PED test and subsequent four-game suspension to open up the 2018 season, it’s still a more candid and honest explanation than anything he’s said before about the events that occurred nearly a year ago.