Patriots Placing Julian Edelman On IR And Here’s What That Means

The New England Patriots will be playing without veteran wideout Julian Edelman for quite some time and now he is placed on IR.

The Patriots will place the veteran wideout on injured reserve, and Ian Rapoport from NFL Media was the first to confirm the big news.

The talented wideout had a knee procedure to treat his injury. New England has ruled Edelman out for Sunday’s match against the dominant Buffalo Bills. It’s a road game for the Patriots and they will play without two key wideouts. N’Keal Harry will also miss the game.

Edelman’s injury has slowed him down, and his performance saw a big drop in the first games of the regular season. The Patriots wideout was limited in all but one practice before his procedure. Edelman played just 68.1 percent of offensive snaps in the first six games for the team. If you are taking notes, this is about a 20-point drop from Edelman’s snap rate in 2019. He had 87.4 back then.

The 2018 Super Bowl MVP leads the team with 21 catches for 315 yards. However, he was able to catch just eight passes on 21 targets for 79 yards in the last four contests.

Julian Edelman to miss some time after being placed on IR

According to the new NFL rules, players on IR must sit out at least three regular-season contests. If everything goes according to the plan, Edelman will be able to join the team in Week 11. New England will play against the Houston Texans that week.

In Friday’s press conference, head coach Bill Belichick talked about Edelman’s injury. He believes that the wideout will return at some point of the season. In other words, it’s not a season-ending injury. That’s more than great news for the Patriots nation.

“We’ll see how the return goes,” the head coach said. “I don’t think this is a season-ending situation, but we’ll see. I’m not a doctor. We’ll see how it goes here. Hopefully, he’ll be back. He’s worked awfully hard, and nobody’s more competitive than Julian is, so he’ll do everything he can to be back out there.”

Edelman is a key player for the Patriots receiving unit. Damiere Byrd will get his time to shine in the next few weeks.