This excerpt of Braylon Edwards: Doing It My Way: My Outspoken Life as a Michigan Wolverine, NFL Receiver, and Beyond, by Braylon Edwards and Tom VanHaaren, is presented with permission from Triumph Books. For more information and to order a copy, please visit www.triumphbooks.com/braylonedwards.
The night of the Michigan-Notre Dame game, I was at an event at Soaring Eagle in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. We were at a Michigan event, and a lot of former Michigan players came to it, including Rick Leach, Ron Bellamy, Dave Terrell, and my father. It was a good mix of former players from different eras. It gave fans a chance to shoot the breeze, have a couple drinks, and talk about the state of Michigan football. And it gave us players a chance to catch up, too.
We were having a good time and we started talking about what we had seen from the program since Jim Harbaugh’s been there. It always starts the same conversation about what needs to change, what can be done better. That carried into the game and the expectations of this new Michigan. It’s basically just bar talk. After getting some drinks, passion got mixed in. Emotions were high. We wanted to see Michigan move forward and prove itself with this new team. We were struggling, not looking the part. That bar talk led to a tweet, where I criticized the offense and Cesar Ruiz and Shea Patterson. Any student watching that game at the Brown Jug or Blue Leprechaun was thinking the same thing. However, it’s different when you hear someone like me say it. So once I hit send on the tweet, I caught backlash like you couldn’t imagine.
That night I didn’t really pay attention to it. I sent the first one and then I think I sent two and I deleted them. Then I sent a third one and didn’t delete that. I didn’t check Twitter that night. My friends and I went to the casino, gambled a little bit, and then I went to bed. It wasn’t until the next day that I actually saw the backlash. I got a call from an executive at the Big Ten Network on Sunday, telling me to take the tweet down and that it wasn’t appropriate. I deleted it and I saw what fans were saying. That was it until Harbaugh discussed it on that Monday.
I don’t regret the tweet in the sense of the overall message. Look what happened at the end of the year with Ohio State and Florida. The part of the tweet that I looked at and wish I could change is talking about the players individually. I’ve been in those situations before where people have said things about me. Twitter wasn’t around when I dropped a fourth-down pass at Ohio State. It was a case of truth vs. opinion. You should keep opinions to yourself, especially about young players.
So I definitely wish I could take that back and just tweeted the vanilla message that Michigan needs to get better, but that didn’t happen. On the Big Ten Network, you can’t say those things and then potentially interview these players or coaches. So that’s a warning or a lesson to learn because nothing had ever happened between me and the network. This wasn’t thing No. 2 or 3; this was the first issue.
When Harbaugh addressed my tweet personally, it was to the point of: don’t go after my players; go after me. Big Ten Network had to look at whether this was recoverable and whether it could move forward with me. I got a call from Quentin Carter, a senior producer for the Big Ten Network. He puts people on the shows and makes personnel decisions. He called me and told me that I couldn’t come in that week. It started off as just a deal for that week.
Then I had a meeting with Big Ten Network and FOX. I never received a phone call back after that. I sent out a tweet apologizing to Ruiz and Patterson, but I still stood by my overall statement about Michigan. My statement came from a place of passion. I was a kid who went to the Michigan game in 1993, where Colorado quarterback Kordell Stewart threw a Hail Mary to win the game. We lost, and I cried. My father went to Michigan, and my brother, Berkley, is at Michigan. My uncle went there, too. Berkley had a moment this year where he was lying on Michigan’s field. I’m Michigan through and through. I donate to the school.
I have always loved Michigan. It’s nothing but a place of passion. You know how much money I’ve lost on Michigan betting when I was in the NFL? They started calling it a sucker’s bet because I kept doing it. I lost a ton of money on the game in 2006 when Michigan was No. 2 and Ohio State was No. 1 because Michigan lost. I go back to Michigan, I care about the kids. For me, it’s not a place of hate. It’s a place of love. But I see this consistent theme. Michigan lost to Iowa in 2016 and blew its chance. The Wolverines may have stopped J.T. Barrett short, but what happened on third and long where Curtis Samuel ran the ball for nine yards? What about losing to Michigan State consistently? Look at the bowl game against Florida and against South Carolina. Every time the eyes are on, we get this different version of Michigan, and it’s depressing. We’re just not at that highest level and we haven’t been for a long time. I regret throwing the kids in there, but I don’t regret being an alum and a fan and saying we can’t win in key moments. I didn’t mean any harm; it wasn’t malicious. Everybody makes mistakes. I still support Michigan, I’m still die-hard Michigan. I wore my Michigan jogging suit while writing this book.
I didn’t call Patterson or Ruiz personally because I just wanted them to play their season out and I think enough had happened. I wanted to run into them organically. I didn’t want it to be forced or that I was saying it just to save face. I reached out to Berkley and told him to tell them I was sorry, and when we see each other, there will be a conversation.
I found out that I was suspended from the Big Ten Network by seeing it on TV. The network felt it needed to cover its butt. So I was let go. The network views the players as kids. I think that’s the opinion because we never had a full conversation about a specific policy or what was happening with my job. I still have not talked to anybody about what happened or the thought process of why I was let go. I wasn’t a full timer. I was an independent contractor working once a week. I could work for anybody as long as it didn’t interfere with the Big Ten job. So maybe they didn’t think they needed to notify me; I’m not sure.
This was a chance for them to stand behind their talent. But I have no ill will toward the Big Ten Network. Carter is a good dude, and there are a lot of good people at the Big Ten Network. I think it would’ve been a short stay for me anyway because it’s too small.
I want to move to the NFL and be an analyst with the league. I want to sit back and observe first, but I want to do something where I can speak freely. At the end of the day, I want to be able to be raw and uncut. I don’t want to be held back. I’m going to sit back and observe and see what I should do next.
The only thing that had me down was the relationship with the Michigan fans. The issues that came up with the great Michigan fandom were from two kinds of people: the kids, who don’t really know me or my game, were upset. Their idea of a Michigan receiver is Amara Darboh, and they don’t think of me when they think Michigan receiver. The other upset ones were the fans who were distracted from the hurt of the Notre Dame loss. Upset about the loss, they put some of their anger toward me. But that was the only thing that kept me down: the fact that the relationship with the fans was hurt. I want them to know it came from passion and love and not hate. I love Michigan and the fans.
For me and my life, everything came back to where it started. My dad came back in a positive way, my mom had my best interest at hand, and Michigan became a launching point for a career. Even the conference that gave me my first shot was now giving me another chance. That’s why I say: when I look back at this story, at this life, I wouldn’t change a thing.
---
• Talk about this article inside The Fort
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Listen and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolverine
• Sign up for our newsletter, The Wolverine Now
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolverineMag, @Balas_Wolverine, @EJHolland_TW, @AustinFox42, @JB_ Wolverine, Clayton Sayfie and @DrewCHallett
• Like us on Facebook
