Julian Edelman seems to have a different No. 2 wideout every week. The New England Patriots have made no shortage of major transactions at receiver during the course of the 2019 season, whether it was drafting first-rounder N’Keal Harry, trading away Demaryius Thomas, signing and cutting Antonio Brown, trading for Mohamed Sanu and waiving Josh Gordon. Bill Belichick has been busy shaping his receiver depth chart.
Edelman met with reporter Ian Rapoport on a podcast for “Westwood One” and discussed the turnover, which Edelman admitted was at a higher volume than normal.
“We have coaches that do a good job of getting — that have been helping with this crazy year of rotation of what we’ve been going through. They do a good job of helping,” Edelman told Rapoport in a recent interview. “We all kind of just chip away at kind of getting whoever’s in caught up. And that’s everyone, not just the new guys. We’re such a game plan team. Every week, you install (the game plan) and everyone’s got to go out there in practice and learn it together. I think you get so caught up in that, you almost forget the outside things that are happening.”
The Patriots have a foundation on offense, but they install a weekly game plan to ensure they’ve designed plays and schemes to exploit the weaknesses of their opponent in any given week. With the Patriots putting laser focus into each installation, players like Edelman don’t have much time to reflect upon the comings and goings of teammates, he said.
“Playing in this league for a while, you’re never surprised with anything, just because there’s so many bizarre things that happen — this, that, the other,” Edelman said on the podcast. “You try to kind of keep your focus on what you can control, and that’s trying to make your game better.”
