Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Signing Julian Edelman would make no sense

Per NFL.com and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the New England Patriots have terminated the contract of longtime receiver and Super Bowl LIII MVP Julian Edelman. Naturally, the gigantic game of connect-the-dots that is the NFL rumor mill on Twitter is that Edelman should and will wind up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to reunite with Tom Brady, thus giving Brady both of his BFFs in Edelman and Rob Gronkowski.

Let’s stomp this one out right now. The Buccaneers bringing in Edelman would make zero sense.

For starters, let’s look at the primary reason he was let go from New England: he failed his physical. His knee is still a lingering problem, and it’s looking like an increasing long shot that he’ll even play again.

There’s no need for the Buccaneers to bring a shell of Edelman into their already crowded wide receiver room, a room in which many still want Antonio Brown to rejoin. Not only that, the arrival of Edelman, healthy or not, could cause a distraction, not to mention another body, that could hinder the production of young receivers like Scotty Miller and Tyler Johnson, who have already shown tremendous upside. The upside has been so much that the Bucs may not even need to bring back Brown anyway and be fine with Miller and Johnson. So if that’s the case, why would they need Edelman?

At the end of the day, in this Madden video game and fantasy football-crazed NFL world, we find ourselves in, naturally, everyone is going to get their general manager hat on and try to mix and match players. Realistically, sure, it may “make sense on paper” for the Buccaneers to bring in Edelman to play with Brady again, but while the Patriots look at them cutting bait with him as addition by subtraction, in the case of the Bucs it would be subtraction by addition. Simply put, it’s fun to think about, but no Jason Licht should not sign Julian Edelman to the Buccaneers.

It’s not like he’ll make any catches for the Bucs against the Atlanta Falcons as he did in Super Bowl LI anyway.