Drew Bledsoe, Julian Edelman; Credits: USA TODAY Sports
It’s fair to say the ‘Greatest Roast of All Time,’ crossed some lines. But that’s typical of such roasts. However, it could’ve been much worse. According to insights from Drew Bledsoe and Julian Edelman after the roast, there were some distasteful jokes that didn’t see the light of day.
Joining Edelman on his podcast, ‘Games with Names,’ Bledsoe revealed that there were jokes that were suggested by the writer’s room that he just didn’t want to do, and others that were shot down by his family. Giving an inside look into what the writers’ room looked like when they were all discussing the jokes and throwing ideas at the wall, Bledsoe revealed,
“There were a couple of things that I just didn’t like. They wanted to do a lot of September 2001 stuff. And they gave Tom the Jets crashing into me joke, but they wanted me to do that. But I was like ‘yeah, I don’t really know.'”
Then, there was one joke that the former quarterback had pitched to his family but was immediately shot down by the women of his house. According to Drew Bledsoe, he had a Gisele joke in mind, but it didn’t go down extremely well with his wife and daughter, both of whom explicitly told him not to do it.
So it seems the joke that had most of America’s jaws on the floor was initially meant to be delivered by Bledsoe. While he passed on it, Brady had no problem taking it up and making it his own.
Tom Brady’s Controversial 9/11 Joke
The joke Drew Bledsoe was not so sure of did end up being part of the comedy night, and was used by the man of the night himself. The joke went,
“Like the rest of America, I’ll always remember where I was that fateful day in September of 2001, when, tragically, those two Jets…slammed into Drew Bledsoe.”
September 2001 was indeed a cruel time for America. And it was also the time that effectively ended Drew Bledsoe’s NFL career, and launched Brady’s. While a smart comparison, many found it to be in bad taste. While Bledsoe suffered a catastrophic injury when he was hit by New York Jets lineback Mo Lewis while another player was trying to trip him up, America was reeling through arguably one of its greatest tragedies.
The twin towers were hit by hijacked jets on September 11th, leading to the loss of countless lives, and understandably people were not willing to laugh at Brady’s joke. This was also why Bledsoe decided that the joke was not for him, though he did say he thought it worked well for Brady.
Nidhi is an NFL Editor for The SportsRush. Her interest in NFL began with 'The Blindside' and has been working as an NFL journalist for the past year. As an athlete herself, she uses her personal experience to cover sports immaculately. She is a graduate of English Literature and when not doing deep dives into Mahomes' latest family drama, she inhales books on her kindle like nobody's business. She is proud that she recognised Travis Kelce's charm (like many other NFL fangirls) way before Taylor Swift did, and is waiting with bated breath for the new album to drop.
