It's interesting, because I'm certain that most normal people probably haven't had a discussion about Michigan wide receiver Braylon Edwards in years, and yet, because Braylon Edwards is my friend Collin's favorite college football player ever, I don't qualify as a normal person. And as we learned today, even Braylon Edwards himself isn't a normal person, because for a single moment in time in the locker room of a YMCA recreation center in suburban Detroit, he was a hero.

“If it wasn't for that intervention, we could very easily be talking about someone's death,” said Jeff King, the police chief in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The intervention that King references was that of Edwards, who stepped in and saved the life of an 80-year-old man who was nearly murdered by a 20-year-old over the weekend over a dispute about loud music.

“He absolutely saved that man's life,” King told The Associated Press. “I've been a police officer going on 29 years. When these assaults are ongoing, really bad things can happen.”

“The noise escalates, and then you can hear some pushing and shoving, so you know what fighting sounds like,” Edwards told WDIV-TV in the aftermath of the incident. “But once I hear a thud, that's when I got up and turned around.”

Unlike during his time with the Michigan Wolverines, Braylon Edwards sprung into action immediately in that Farmington Hills YMCA locker room. But on the field at Michigan, that's not how things went. Edwards hardly played during his freshman season at Michigan, but was a standout during his final three seasons in Ann Arbor. In his Michigan career, Edwards hauled in 252 receptions (3rd in Big Ten history), for 3,503 yards (3rd in Big Ten history) and 39 touchdowns (1st in Big Ten history). He finished tenth in Heisman voting in 2004 and is the only wide receiver in Big Ten history with three consecutive seasons with at least 1,000 yards receiving.

Edwards wasn't able to live up to the hype he had coming out of college — it didn't help his cause that the Browns passed on Aaron Rodgers to take him — but he still managed to have a successful eight year career in the NFL. In 112 career games, Edwards had 359 receptions, 5,522 yards and 40 touchdowns. Those aren't numbers to sneeze at. The peak of his playing career came in his third season, when he made a Pro Bowl and was named a 2nd Team All-Pro after finishing the season with 80 receptions, 1,289 yards and 16 touchdowns, which is the 15th-highest single-season mark in NFL history.

All of those on-field accomplishments though pale in comparison to the simple, yet heroic act of saving a man's life.

“At the end of the day, that's what you do,” Edwards said.