FOXBOROUGH -- Saturday's game vs. the Bills was quite the eventful one for Julian Edelman.
The wide receiver played through shoulder and knee injuries the week before against the Bengals, but only had two catches for nine yards. Going into the game this week, he reportedly felt better than the week before and it showed.
Edelman, while still not 100 percent, was moving a lot better and was a player Tom Brady went to early and often. He recorded four catches on five targets for 42 yards in the first half, but then was forced from the game in the third quarter.
The slot receiver ran a route over the middle, directly into Bills safety Jordan Poyer. Edelman took the brunt of the blow and laid on the ground for a few extra seconds before getting up and seeing multiple flags around him for offensive pass interference, negating a Benjamin Watson touchdown.
"Those are tough plays," Edelman said. "It's a bang-bang play. It's a slant-flat. They were in man coverage, and you're trying to set up your guy, and all of a sudden you come off and you break off of it and you've got that guy right up in your face. And you try to protect yourself, and then I saw three flags. Those are tough plays."
Why did he stay on the ground?
"I was trying to sell it," Edelman said. "Maybe they didn't see it. Then three flags were literally in my face. That sell didn't work and it got me taken out for a quarter."
Edelman was brought to the blue medical tent behind the Patriots' bench and then into the locker room to be tested for a concussion. During this time the Patriots fell behind 17-13 and then cut it to 17-16 with just under 10 minutes to play in the final quarter.
That was when Edelman sprinted up the steps from the locker room and joined his teammates on the sideline just in time to get on the field for the drive that began with 9:01 to play.
He immediately got into the action by catching a 30-yard pass on the first play to ignite the offense and help set up Rex Burkhead's 1-yard touchdown that proved to be the game-winner. Edelman also added the two-point conversion.
"I was gone for a little bit, so I didn't want to mess up the flow of things," he said. "I just wanted to go out and do what I am asked to do. That is what I tried to do."
Despite everything he's playing through, he finished with five catches on six targets for 72 yards. Afterwards, his toughness was a major topic in the locker room, but he doesn't seem to like that.
"I'm honestly sick of it," Edelman said, slightly joking. "Because guys come up to me, and they're like, 'Ahh, dude, reporters are asking me about your toughness, yada yada.' Please, just stop asking me."
The Patriots clinched the AFC East with the win, so now just need a win over Miami in Week 17 to clinch a first-round bye. Will Edelman potentially sit out to get potentially two extra weeks down before the playoffs?
"I'm going to do what the coaches ask me to do, but I get paid to play football," he said. "So that's what I'm going to try to do."
