Report: Edelman’s Suspension Based on Unrecognizable Substance

“Well consider this punishment for something you’ve gotten away with.”

I’ve heard that line a few times from my parents in my day, and it would appear that Julian Edelman’s recent four game suspsension is the NFL equivalent of just that.

When Edelman took drug his test this past offseason, the results returned a substance that wasn’t immediately recognizable, and the results are still being analyzed.

According to Albert Breer, Edelman took the test a few months ago, which means that whatever came up in that test wasn’t a stimulant like Adderall; prescription pills like those aren’t considered a violation in the offseason, just when you’re being worked to death six days a week and taking a massive beating ever Sunday. Because that makes all the sense in the world. So while nobody knows what was in Edelman’s system, that didn’t stop the league from giving him four games.

If you think it’s ridiculous for the league to suspend a player before anything conclusive comes to light, you would be 100% correct - but you also must be new to these parts, because that’s the way the NFL does business. This isn’t unique to Edelman, either, nor is it any kind of “the NFL is out to get the Patriots” narrative; this has happened before elsewhere as well. Other players have had something in their system, the league preemptively enacted a punishment, then revisited the ruling once more results came in. I guess the logic is...actually, I’m not even going to guess what the logic is here. I gave up trying to make sense of anything the league office does a long time ago.

So there’s a chance Edelman might see the field in September after all. Unlike the NFLand the way it doles out punishment, I guess we’ll just have to wait for the results to come in to find out.