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. This is coming off the Josh Cribbs era at Kent State, so I was rolling through there. It was an easy stopping-off point. I could hit Kent on the way home from Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Akron. I probably went in there three times that fall of [2008].”

Nagy bared that Edelman would have a hard time generating interest from the Patriots at the quarterback position, especially with the likes of Tom Brady and Matt Cassel on the roster. Nonetheless, they took a chance on him to make the switch to being a wide receiver in order for him to be able to make things work in the NFL:

“But Julian was a heck of a football player, and you don't want to discard really good football players. So you think outside the box and try to get creative, try to find a role for him. There were reasons you thought it could work. He had incredible short-area quickness. He had really good reactive cutting ability. He had great football instincts in terms of feeling people — spatial awareness, things of that nature. Extremely tough with the ball in this hands.”

Former Patriots vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli assigned Nagy to the wide receivers as his cross-check position before the team proceeded to their scouting meetings in December and standard cross-check process in February prior to the draft. While Nagy and Pioli departed the organization for the Kansas City Chiefs prior to the draft, a lot of the work had been done on Edelman already, and the Patriots ultimately decided to take him with the 232nd pick.

Despite being an under-the-radar player, Julian Edelman was able to carve out a legendary career with the Patriots, winning three Super Bowl titles and a Super Bowl MVP. Certainly enough, the entire Patriots organization didn't regret their decision to take a chance on an unknown prospect who ultimately turned out to be one of their most storied players in franchise history.