After a bit of a scare in the fourth and final preseason game, it appears Julian Edelman is good to go for Sunday night against the Steelers and Week 1 of the NFL season.
Edelman missed multiple weeks of training camp and the preseason due to a thumb injury, which landed him on NFI. He was activated off the list and returned to practice before playing in the final preseason game last Thursday against the Giants.
After making a catch and being tackled to the ground, the wide out landed on his hand/thumb and immediately went to the sideline and took his glove off. After shaking his hand out and consulting quickly with the training staff, everything appeared fine as even though he didn't return to the game he stayed on the sideline and was joking with teammates.
Appearing on The Greg Hill Show Friday morning, Edelman was asked how the thumb is feeling?
"It's a thumbs up, man. Thumbs up," he said.
The 33-year-old also discussed how this summer has been different than last when he was coming off an ACL injury and he had to pretty much start from the bottom.
"I mean, you have a foundation this year," he said. "Last year you're running on fumes a little bit because you start from square zero with your knee and then you come back and you're expected to do high velocity, high tempo, high athletic things with something that is very brand new to your body. It's definitely a better start place this year, mentally. You also feel it physically. Emotionally, you feel it there. You're feeling pretty good, especially coming off that whole year of such a grind last year with the knee."
Edelman was also asked about the potential of this being Tom Brady's last year with the Patriots and the thought of Antonio Brown coming to New England, but he kept the focus on the Steelers.
"This is Week 1. You're really worried about Week 1 and Opening Night and the excitement that that is going to bring," he said. "It's always a different kind of game, Week 1. There's no tape of anyone. You're going out there and there's first game jitters. There's this, there's that. The concert is going, the banner is dropping. This, that. There's so many distractions and ultimately you are there to play against a very, very good franchise that has been good for a long time, that has had three coaches, one GM. A pivotal franchise in this league.
"You try and bring everything back to that because you come into these kind of games against teams like this, they will embarrass you on your home field. It's something you don't want to happen. All those things you keep bringing up with the off the field stuff, those are great headlines and they are cute, but I have to bring my hard hat and my lunch pail to work and get ready to go play against those Steelers."
