Patriots receiver and Super Bowl LIII MVP Julian Edelman serves as the subject of a documentary that debuts on Friday night. Edelman’s story includes a four-game suspension last year for violating the league’s PED policy.
As noted by Boston.com, the documentary doesn’t necessarily exhibit much contrition for Edelman’s use of a substance that gave him an unfair and improper advantage as he recovered from a torn ACL. The documentary also doesn’t go into the details of the suspension, and while Edelman acknowledges that he “put myself in this situation” and “screwed up,” the documentary includes Snoop Dogg reading the text of the suspension letter, a not-so-subtle effort to blur the lines between the league’s prohibition on Snoop’s activity of choice and flat-out cheating by using a performance-enhancing compound.
Through it all, Edelman has managed to avoid ever having to answer tough questions about the PED violation. In a town hall with SiriusXM NFL Radio, Edelman once again tiptoed around the circumstances of his infraction.
“It was a low time,” Edelman said. “You’re already battling mentally if you can do it like you did it. And then all of a sudden you have this, 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.”
It hasn’t been as tough as it could have been, because he still hasn’t been pressed to admit to what he took, why he took it, and whether he knew when he took it that he was taking something he shouldn’t be taking. Jim Miller of SiriusXM NFL Radio became the latest interrogator to do little interrogating of Edelman on this point, discussing the violation with arguable nonchalance by pointing out that Miller also served a four-game suspension for violating the PED policy during his own playing career.
Sorry, but Edelman cheated. And he’s never really owned the fact that he cheated. Until someone forces him to own it, he likely never will.