Julian Edelman’s touchdown pass brings his passer rating to a perfect 158.3 in the NFL. When the New England Patriots coaches called the trick play against the Baltimore Ravens, Julian Edelman took it in stride. As we now know, it was a play the team had been working on since training camp began. What made the play so successful? Bill Belichick said there was no way to predict the Ravens’ defense on that play, but they weren’t surprised by what they saw.
“We had hurt them on first down, gained like nine yards on first down and that created the second-and-short, and then if I remember, we ran a quarterback sneak. Then it was first down again and it didn’t surprise us that we got some kind of pressure to try to not let us get another first down or an eight or nine-yard gain or that kind of thing to try to create a second-and-long. “You know, I’d say playing the percentages, we thought we would get one of their base calls or possibly some pressure in that situation and we ended up getting pressure.”
The pressure on Tom Brady gave Edelman the time he needed to step back for the throw. The Ravens realized too late that Edelman was throwing the ball, and by then Danny Amendola was gone. Edelman’s throw was a perfect spiral (Brady jokingly said Edelman threw it better than he did) and hit Amendola in stride for the touchdown. It was a well designed play with many moving parts. Brady needed to make a good throw to Edelman. Nate Solder had to make sure the ball didn’t get tipped by Terrell Suggs on it’s way to Edelman. Gronkowski had to protect Edelman and give him time to throw. Edelman had to make a perfect throw to Amendola. As we all know (NFL announcers reference it almost every time he takes the field) Edelman played QB at Kent State for three years. He was pretty good too with 4,997 passing yards, 30 touchdowns, and a 54.5% pass completion percentage. Edelman’s touchdown pass against the Ravens bumps his completion percentage up to 100% as far as his NFL career is concerned.
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