Julian Edelman Shares His Worst Bill Belichick Film Room Experience

The New England Patriots lost a valuable player in free agency. This player won the Super Bowl MVP in 2018 and Patriots fans will miss him. The best receiver in league history has some great memories with Patriots, but he will always remember his worst experience in Bill Belichick’s film room.

In a recent appearance on Chris Long’s “Green Light Podcast,” Edelman talked about his worst film-room “treatment.” While head coach Bill Belichick enjoyed coaching Edelman, the fact is that he is a tough guy.

This happened after Edelman and veteran cornerback Stephon Gilmore were removed from training camp practice in 2017. They fought after the whistle. Gilmore entered his first season with the Patriots. He and Gilmore ripped off each other’s helmets right after a contested incompletion. Players and staffers had to separate him.

Julian Edelman learned a lot from his worst experience

When the team gathered in the film room, Belichick taught him a lesson.

“I got in a fight with Gilmore,” Edelman explained on Long’s podcast. “(Belichick) puts it on, and he’ll just sit and rewind it like 45 times with silence — silence! And then when he stands up, there’s a guy that his job is to go run and turn the lights on. So it’s, like, majestically turning on. …

“So he sits and rewinds it like 45 times, and then he stands up and he goes, ‘What the (expletive) are we doing? We can’t have this.’ He’s just going on and just wringing me like, ‘You know what, Edelman? You over here think you’re a tough guy.’ Just getting on me in front of the team. But I think low-key, he loved it.”

Edelman and Long talked about Belichick’s film sessions. He was brutal.

“It’s really something to be said when a coach — I don’t know how it is in other places, but this guy every day, for 45 to 50 minutes every day, would break down three phases of the game and he could call each phase of the game like he was a coordinator,” Edelman told Long, who was part of the Patriots’ 2016 championship team. “And he’s called plays for each phase of the game. I didn’t really realize that until I heard guys like you come in and say, ‘This is crazy that you guys come in and meet every morning for this long and he’s putting on a 60-play cutup that we all have to watch.’ I didn’t realize that.”

Coach Belichick really likes Edelman. He delivered a special message for the former wideout. According to Belichick, Edelman is “the ultimate competitor.”