Patriots Julian Edelman’s Appeal For His 4-Game Suspension Has Been Denied
The NFL struck again and refuses to overturn a suspension that they had originally deemed the correct punishment. The monster’s upstairs found Julian Edelman guilty of taking a banned substance even though they aren’t quite sure exactly what it is that he tested positive for.
Look, I’m not here to bitch. I’m really not. Julian Edelman was on the road to recovery after blowing out his ACL during last year’s preseason and probably took something to help expedite the process. Whether he knew that he was taking something that has been banned by the NFL is something that I obviously don’t know. He claims he would never do it, but we’ve heard that before over and over and over and over.
Edelman went into the appeal with the idea that he can fight this case based on the mishandling of evidence. If you remember, a couple of years back, Richard Sherman went into his appeal hearing with the same case. The only difference though? He won his case and had the suspension overturned.
He and his team entered the “court” with two separate arguments. One, that because what he tested positive for wasn’t recognizable, it shouldn’t be something that can get him suspended. Which, sure, the test flagged you for something illegal but they just don’t really know what it was for.
And the larger argument came when they claimed that Edelman’s test documents and delivery of said documents were “mishandled” by the NFL.
I won’t sit here and act like I know exactly what they are trying to point out when they say that the delivery was mishandled, but what I do know is that every step of the process has to be handled precisely and if there was in fact evidence of the test results being “mishandled”, well then I guess Jules actually did have a case.
None of that matters now that the suspension has been upheld. The Patriots will be without Edelman for another four games on top of the entire season last year. Spin zone… I guess this gives that ACL some extra recovery time?
-Nick Quaglia (@NickQuag)