Julian Edelman on Patriots’ videotaping scandal: ‘That’s pretty much a joke’

“We haven’t even thought about it, honestly.”

New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman doesn’t think much of the team’s videotaping scandal, which spurred an NFL investigation.

The Patriots have admitted to videotaping the Cincinnati Bengals’ sideline from the press box during the team’s Week 14 matchup against the Cleveland Browns. New England explained the intent was to use that footage, not for Patriots’ football operation, but for a Patriots.com documentary series on advance scouts, whose job is to attend the game of their upcoming opponent to observe things like that team’s sideline. While they can watch, they cannot record video. The Patriots’ production team violated that rule, even if they did so inadvertently.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much a joke,” Edelman said during a weekly radio show appearance with WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Thursday. “We haven’t even thought about it, honestly. We have been thinking about other things. It’s funny, but it is what it is. I don’t know, it’s ridiculous. My focus is on the Buffalo Bills.”

Tom Brady said something similar earlier this week.

“I don’t think any player gave it one second of thought,” he said. “… You just move on, man. There’s a lot of distractions out there and if you lose focus on your job, that is really a waste of your time. There’s a lot of people out there — they can create distractions for us, but we just want to go out there and focus on what we can do and what our job is and try and go out there and play the best we possibly can.”

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