When Terrell Edmunds was younger, he and his brothers, Trey and Tremaine, would talk about all playing in the NFL one day. A lot of kids do so, dreaming big.
For the Edmunds boys — Terrell, 21, is the middle brother, Trey is two years older and Tremaine two years younger — it would seem like a pipe dream. But Ferrell and Felicia Edmunds raised their boys to dream big. After all, Ferrell had spent seven seasons in the NFL as a tight end with the Dolphins and Seahawks, earning Pro Bowl berths in 1989 and 1990 and an All-Pro nod in 1989.
"We always had talks about it. My dad always told us that just because he went to the NFL doesn’t mean that it’s the plan for us. He told us that we could do anything that we want. If we wanted to play a sport, we had to put our all into it to get there," Terrell said Friday upon being introduced at the Rooney Sports Complex as the Steelers' first-round pick in the NFL Draft. "That’s been our mindset through it all. Of course, we all talked about it. We all dreamt about it. We wanted to do it, and now that it’s happening, these next years are going to be amazing."
What might be a big dream for some was something of an expectation for the Edmunds boys. They were athletes ... star athletes.
"In high school, we all played basketball. We all ran track as well, so we were three-sport athletes. We all did big things in each sport," Terrell said. "Football was the best route for us, so that’s the route that we took."
Good choice.
Tremaine Edmunds, a linebacker, was selected with the 16th pick in the first round of Thursday's draft. Trey Edmunds, a running back, signed with the New Orleans Saints as an undrafted free agent last year, rushing for 48 yards on nine carries. Terrell, meanwhile, was selected by the Steelers with the 28th pick in the first round.
Those bloodlines and that background attracted the Steelers to Edmunds. Of course, running a 4.47-second 40-yard dash at 6-1, 217 pounds and showing off a number of other athletic attributes that ranked in the top 10 among defensive backs at the NFL Scouting Combine didn't hurt.
"One of the real reasons that we’ve been attracted to Terrell is really that pedigree," admitted Art Rooney II. "He comes from a football family, comes from a family that is dedicated to the game, and you can see that in his brothers, and his father."
Tremaine and Terrell are the first brothers to be selected in the first round of the draft in the same year.
"Honestly, if you would have told me this last night, I would have said, 'OK,' and it would have went in one ear and out the other because I was so excited," Terrell said. "But to know that now is really cool."
It's funny how things work out. All three Edmunds boys played at Virginia Tech, not far from the family home in Danville, Va.
It wasn't a planned thing any more than Terrell and Tremaine entering the draft in the same year.
"That's just the way it came out," Terrell said. "My older brother, he was there first, and I just got acclimated with the school, the coaches and things just felt right at Virginia Tech. The coaches were great. The football atmosphere was amazing.
"I made my decision to come out, and then he decided he wanted to come out, too. He had the hype surrounding his name. We made our own solo decisions."
Edmunds was much better in his redshirt sophomore season than he was as a redshirt junior last year. A shoulder injury suffered during Virginia Tech's preseason camp might have been a big part of that.
Just don't mention it to Edmunds.
"I never went into a game thinking about my shoulder, because if I would have been thinking about my shoulder, I probably would have missed a lot more tackles because I would have been altering my tackling style," he said. "I never really thought about my shoulder when I was playing because, of course, I had the brace on and it was uncomfortable."
He finally shut things down after 10 games when the pain became unbearable. The shoulder is healed now — he got a clean bill of health a month ago — but there's no doubt playing through the injury affected how many felt about him in this draft.
But it also earned him a great deal of respect from Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente.
“I think athletically, he’s just different," Fuente told Hokies.com. "He’s an incredibly hard worker, but I’ve never seen a guy that can’t get tired. He doesn’t. We know about the family, just great people in general, but there’s just something different about him. His stamina, his strength, his work ethic, his intelligence. He’s pretty special. When they go run in the summertime and we go do things and you’re playing games, and he’s covering punts and playing safety and covering kickoffs, he’s the fastest guy out there every single time, every single rep, it’s pretty fun to watch."
Fuente called Edmunds the best player on a Virginia Tech defense that was one of the best in the country a year ago.
Edmunds doesn't know about all of that. But he appreciated the praise.
"I definitely would say I was one of the leaders," he said. "I wouldn't say I was the alpha dog or best player. We had my brother and a couple of other guys who were good players. I made all of the calls on the back end. I put everybody in position. I made the checks and everything. I'm glad coach made that statement. It showed my leadership capabilities."
Leadership capabilities learned from his parents.
Ferrell and Felicia Edmunds raised their sons to be that way. And to always keep the family close to their hearts.
Like the family of his new teammate, T.J. Watt, the Edmunds family is going to have to log a lot of air miles to games this season. T.J. Watt, last year's first-round draft pick of the Steelers, also has two brothers playing in the NFL.
"It will be tough," Edmunds admitted. "But we'll work everything out for them."
