Julian Edelman: 2-4 Patriots ‘just aren’t the Patriots right now’

Few people bleed Patriots blue more than three-time Super Bowl champion Julian Edelman does.

That’s also why he knows something isn’t right when he looks at this year’s currently 2-4 New England squad.

On the latest episode of “Inside The NFL” on Paramount+, the Patriots great gave his bluntest assessment yet about where his old team stands following Sunday’s overtime loss to the Dallas Cowboys: “The Patriots just aren’t the Patriots right now.”

“It hurts me to say this. They are not the Patriots,” he added. “We are so used to seeing the last 20 years — and I know there’s different players, and this, that, but there’s still a group of guys in there that know how they should play. They need to start playing mistake-free football. They’ve had a handful of plays this year where they if they would have went their way, if they would have taken care of the football, if they didn’t get two blocked punts — hasn’t been done since ’93 in New England), if they would have not thrown an interception, if the linemen didn’t let the quarterback have guys running at him free.”

Edelman touched on a sore spot many observers of the Patriots are feeling: that the team has underwhelmed through six games because of miscues and questionable decision-making despite upgrading its talent in the offseason and bringing in a first-round quarterback in Mac Jones.

Right now, the Patriots’ only wins have come on the road against the New York Jets and Houston Texans, which have two wins between them. They’ve also become the first New England team to go 0-4 at home to start a season since 1993, another point that peeved the longtime Patriots receiver.

“[The Cowboys] go on the road, in Foxborough, a notoriously tough place to play. Right now, it’s not, ” he said.

Edelman also revealed Bill Belichick gave his ex-receiver, who was just honored at halftime of the Patriots’ home loss to the New Orleans Saints, to criticize the team without burning any bridges with his old coach.

“[Belichick said] ‘Don’t be a homer, you can MF us if you need to MF us.’ Well, I’m MFing you! I’m MFing!” Edelman said. “They need to start taking care of the football. I don’t want to hear ‘Mac Jones is a rookie.’ He’s got six games under his belt; he’s not a rookie no more, and he’s been compounding good performances.”

Despite Edelman’s points, the Patriots have repeatedly shown a reluctance to let Jones test himself in fourth-down or end-of-half situations, which came under fire once again after several 4th-and-3 punts and a kneel-down to end the first half against the Cowboys rather than an effort to extend drives.

It seems Edelman, like many people, wants to see the Patriots put more on Jones’s plate as he nears the halfway point in his rookie season.

As for the team’s overall performance, the ex-Patriots receiver finished with a line you’re not used to hearing someone say about a Bill Belichick-coached team much: “There needs to be some accountability in those rooms.”