On Thursday, Adam Schefter and Field Yates broke the news of Julian Edelman facing a four-game suspension for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing substance policy.
The ESPN insider joined Kirk & Callahan Friday morning to discuss the case and revealed the positive test occurred within the last month and it was something not a lot of people knew about.
"Well the one thing I can tell you is I think that it's relatively recently that people found out about it," he said. "I don't think this is something that happened late last season, early this offseason. I think it was in the past month or so that the test came back positive to the NFL and the Patriots. There weren't a lot of people that knew about it. I know because when I reached out to a handful of people nobody had any knowledge of it, initially. Obviously, it was a very closely-guarded piece of information and again, I don't think it was something that dates back a long time. Now he's got this situation — it is under appeal still.
"As it was explained to me, it's hard to win an appeal. Most people don't win an appeal, but he's going to go in and argue whatever he's going to argue and we'll see because the system is not infallible. But, you have a guy that has had, as I was told, hundreds of tests and never tested positive before. In this particular case the test came back positive. Right now it's four games unless he can present compelling evidence otherwise."
Schefter added: "The overwhelming majority of the Patriots organization did not know anything about this."
It's worth noting the NFL does not reveal what a player tests positive for. The only way it gets revealed is if the player themselves say it.
As Schefter noted, the case is under appeal, but it's unclear what exactly Edelman is appealing.
"I don't know the exact answer to that," he said. "My sense would be, as it was described to me in talking to various people, that was what came back to me, that the system is not infallible. So, I don't know whether that means what Julian put into his body will be disputed, or the actual process itself will be disputed. Every athlete who has ever faced a suspension has always had an argument of some sort and most of them do not succeed. We'll see if this one does. I don't know what the actual argument will be, but that is what came back to me, 'That the system is not infallible. Keep that in mind.'"
If the suspension holds, Edelman will miss games against the Texans, Jaguars, Lions and Dolphins. The 32-year-old missed all of last year after tearing his ACL in the preseason.
