The inside story of how Julian Edelman landed on Patriots’ draft board

Undrafted, unheralded Taylor Heinicke took on big, bad Tom Brady – who had no idea who the QB out of Old Dominion was when they briefly were teammates a few years ago – and, while the end result went about as expected, a head-first dive for a TD sure captured everyone’s attention and imagination. About 24 hours after finding out he would play quarterback for Washington against Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers in an NFC wild-card game because of Alex Smith’s injured calf, Heinicke got off to a rather inauspicious beginning. Making his first NFL start since 2018 – and only second ever – Heinicke saw his first pass get dropped.