New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman announced his retirement last week after playing 12 seasons in the league. The story of how Edelman landed with the Patriots in the seventh round of the 2009 NFL Draft out of Kent State is certainly an interesting one, as told by Mike Reiss of ESPN.
Edelman was a quarterback at Kent State, where he played for three seasons from 2006 to 2008. Jim Nagy, a former area scout of the Patriots, shared that proximity was a huge factor in how he was able to track Edelman prior to the draft:
“I was living on the west side of Cleveland at the time, so the MAC schools were a big part of my territory.