‘THAT’S WHAT YOU DO’

Ex-NFL Star Rescues 80-Year-Old During YMCA Locker Room Attack: Report

Braylon Edwards, formerly a wide receiver for the New York Jets, said he “subdued” an assailant he found beating an elderly man in the locker room of a YMCA.

Braylon Edwards, a former NFL wide receiver, is being hailed as a hero after intervening during the beating of an elderly man in Michigan on Friday, according to Detroit station WDIV. Edwards, 41, told the outlet that he’d just returned to the locker room after a workout at a YMCA in Farmington Hills when he heard an argument break out over “someone playing some music too loud.” He didn’t immediately pay it much heed, but the fight audibly escalated. “Then you can start to hear some pushing and shoving—you know what fighting sounds like,” Edwards said. “Start to hear some tussling, start to hear some fists. But once I heard a thud, that’s when I got up and turned around.” The athlete stepped in to find a 25-year-old man attacking an 80-year-old victim. “He grabs the back of the victim’s head by the hair and he was about to slam it down on the counter,” Edwards recalled. “I grabbed him, subdued him.” The assailant fled on foot and was later arrested, authorities confirmed to WDIV. Edwards said he didn’t realize he’d probably saved the man’s life until after speaking with police. “At the end of the day, I was just, that’s what you do,” he said. Edwards, who played eight seasons in the league, spending time with the New York Jets and Seattle Seahawks, last played professionally in 2012.