Julian Edelman Calls Out Tom Brady While Sharing Story Of His Rookie Dinner As A 7th Rounder

The year was 2009. Julian Edelman had been drafted 232nd overall by the New England Patriots after spending three years as QB at Kent State where he smashed records but when Edelman was announced in the 2009 NFL Draft he was announced as a Wide Receiver, a move that surprised many. And being drafted in the 7th round meant his signing bonus was only $48,700 which made the Patriots rookie dinner a daunting night for him.

At the tail end of the recent episode of Games With Names, Julian Edelman‘s podcast, he discussed what the Patriots rookie dinner was like for him as a 7th rounder. In the story, Edelman explained how there was a pay scale for the rookie dinner based on the round each rookie was drafted in and their corresponding signing bonus.

In the story, Edelman also throws Tom Brady under the bus for his antics as being wasteful. But at this time, Tom Brady had already won three Super Bowls with the Patriots so he could pretty much do whatever he wanted and nobody would say a thing about it.

The same video is also available on TikTok if that’s a preferred medium to YouTube Shorts:

As Julian Edelman tells it, the fatal mistake the 2009 New England Patriots rookies made that year was providing the veterans with a prix fixe menu with food and drink options. When the vets saw that they decided to twist the screws and make it more miserable for the rookies.

For the dinner, they went to Capital Grille which is a nice steakhouse chain but not one that will completely blow out the competition. They do have incredible wine specials in the Summer though.

Julian Edelman said his portion of the 2009 Rookie dinner was around $2,500 which was a LOT of money to him at that time with a signing bonus of just under $49K. Of course, he did go on to make over $46 million with the Patriots but this was the early days.

Anyways… When the veterans came into the Capital Grille and saw the prix fixe menu they started ordering bottles of Remy Martin’s Louis XIII cognac which honestly is not a great thing to pair with steak. It couldn’t be more obvious they were ordering those bottles just to drive up the rookie dinner price.

Julian Edelman Calls Out Tom Brady’s Role At Rookie Dinner

Edelman then goes on to say that Tom Brady, who was coming off an injury year, showed up to the dinner 45 minutes late. Upon sitting down the first thing he did was order a bottle of wine costing $35,000. He took just ONE SIP of the wine and then left.

In total, Edelman estimates the rookie dinner bill was around $200,000.

Going back to his comment about the sliding scale of how much people pay based on the round they were drafted in, 2009 was an interesting year for New England Patriots rookies. They didn’t draft a single player in the First Round of the 2009 NFL Draft but the Patriots took 4 players in the Second Round (Patrick Chung, Ron Brace, Darius Butler, Sebastian Vollmer) and 2 players in the Third Round (Brandon Tate and Tyrone McKenzie).

So those six players almost certainly got hit with a massive portion of the 2009 Rookie Dinner bill with the 2nd Rounders paying for the lion’s share of the $200K steakhouse bill. And while $200K is nuts, think about this $322K rookie dinner ‘prank’ from a few years back.

But when it’s all said and done…I’m mostly curious what kind of wine it was that Tom Brady ordered. I want to know the vintage, the chateau, and the size of the bottle. $35K is a massive price tag on a wine bottle. I didn’t even know Capital Grille carries wine of that caliber because it’s certainly not on their menu. There are certainly some guesses that could be made as to what the wine was but I’d rather hear from someone at the meal what it was.

Lastly, if you’re not listening to or watching Julian Edelman’s podcast go smash the ‘subscribe’ button on this video because he’s putting out some of the best clips around:

Great stuff.