On Thursday, it was reported by ESPN's Adam Schefter and Field Yates that Julian Edelman is facing a four-game suspension for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing substance policy.
Friday morning on Twitter, Mike Florio posted the following: CONSPIRACY THEORY: The Patriots leaked the looming Edelman suspension to ESPN to put pressure on #Tommy to show up for the rest of the OTAs and work with other receivers.
Florio joined Kirk & Callahan to explain the theory.
"The Patriots I think do their mandatory minicamp in a brilliant way," he said. "You don't do it at the end of the OTAs. You do it halfway through the OTAs because then if you have any guys who aren't there during the OTAs and they show up for mandatory minicamp, maybe they feel a little pressure just by being around their teammates to not bail out again. You throw out on top of it, Edelman is not going to be available the first four weeks of the season, so Tom [Brady] getting together with Julian in the practice bubble, Montana, or wherever, it doesn't matter for the first four weeks. What matters is getting up to speed with the guys on the field that are going to be catching passes the first four weeks. I think it is genius. If they did this on purpose, and if they leaked it to Schefter…"
Florio added: "Reporters don't like it when we speculate about their sources — look, Field Yates, is a nice guy, but everyone in the business knows Field has a pretty close connection with Bill Belichick -- like he worked there, it's a family thing, something. It's taken as a given, it's not even speculative. 'Yeah, Field is getting it from Belichick.' So, you put Field Yates' name on it and you put Adam Schefter's name on it, who has a close relationship with Belichick and it looks like something that was pushed by the Patriots. Doesn't it make sense? I mean, step aside from the Patriots fandom from anyone who is listening and ask, 'Doesn't it make sense to put a little pressure on Tommy to get Tommy to stick around for the OTAs?'"
Before the Edelman news was made public, Brady was asked Thursday if he would be attending next week's four OTA sessions, which are voluntary. The quarterback hasn't attended anything voluntary to this point in the spring.
"We're not even through today yet," he said. "We've had a good three days and been working on the things we need to work on. That's what I always focus on."
