Julian Edelman Shuts Down Any Talk About Joining Tom Brady, Buccaneers

Julian Edelman announced his retirement earlier this offseason. The former Super Bowl MVP had a knee issue that wasn't going to get better and he decided to hang up the cleats instead of struggling through another NFL season. He rides off into the sunset as a featured member of New England's pantheon of championship players and arguably the greatest playoff receiver of all time.

Rumors persist, however, about Edelman unretiring and heading to Tampa Bay in order to play with his good friend Tom Brady, following in the footsteps of ex-teammate Rob Gronkowski. These rumors are not based on any actual reports or anything, but as long as Brady is still in the league, it will be a potential storyline.

Pat McAfee tackled that narrative on Friday. Brady and Edelman were a part of NFL Network's Draft-A-Thon ahead of the 2021 event on Thursday. Brady jokingly said Edelman wasn't actually retiring, he was just too scared to tell Bill Belichick he was going to Tampa instead. Edelman and everyone else had a good laugh. McAfee used that exchange to examine a possible reality in which Edelman did do just that and how Patriots fans would react (as a Patriots fan myself, I would say "poorly").

It's not a serious discussion, just a thought exercise. Nonetheless, Edelman hopped on the Twitter machine to officially put a stop to all this talk.

That settles that. For now. Maybe Edelman will feel good after a year off and change his mind. But it doesn't look likely at this point. Brady will have to settle for a receiving corps of Gronk, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Tyler Johnson, Cameron Brate, O.J. Howard, and Antonio Brown again. Woe is he.