Julian Edelman was mic'd up during the Patriots AFC Divisional Playoff win over the Chiefs last Saturday and, while the whole thing is more than worth the five minutes, a highlight is Edelman complaining about his hands.
As Edelman lined up across from Kansas City corner Sean Smith, Edelman says – either to himself or Smith – “Can’t catch right now. Can’t catch.”
Edelman then dusts Smith with an in-out option route but bobbles Tom Brady’s pass and it nearly ricochets into Smith’s hands.
Back on the bench, Brady counsels Edelman, saying, “Hey, you’re trying to run with it, bubs.”
“I know,” said Edelman.
“Catch and get down,” said Brady
There’s no way of knowing whether “catch and get down” was a reminder of an instruction for that game since it was Edelman’s first in two months or whether Brady thought just securing and hitting the deck would be the first step to overcoming the drops on this night. Either way, it worked fine as Edelman finished with 10 catches for 100 yards.
New England Patriots
The other enjoyable behind-the-scenes moment came when Brady went out of bounds at the Kansas City one and the Patriots challenged that he’d scored a touchdown.
“How can that not be a touchdown?” Bill Belichick asks alternate official Bill Vinovich.
“He didn’t get a body part in the end zone so the ball’s gotta cross over the pylon or inside it,” explained Vinovich.
“The ball did cross it. The ball’s across the goal line,” said Belichick before kind of resigning himself to the ref’s interpretation and folding his tent with a sighed, “Alright.”
Edelman, meanwhile, was intervening between a madcap Brady and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. As Brady approached the sidelines, McDaniels was shriekily trying to calm Brady down, saying, “It’s nothing … alright, it’s alright. I can’t (expletive) do anything!”
As they come together, Edelman sounds like he’s breaking up a bar fight, shouting over both of them, “We’re good! We’re good! We’re good! Hey! Love each other!” Brady and McDaniels patched stuff up.
After Brady snuck in from the 1 after the challenge, Edelman walked past Brady on the bench and said, “Sneaky bastard. You are a sneaky son of a bitch.”