HIT AND MISS

Eight years after a freak injury at the Pro Bowl nearly cost him his leg, the pain has finally subsided for Robert Edwards.

Not the pain in his knee, but the stab he felt each time he saw his old team, the New England Patriots, hoist another Lombardi Trophy.

“I’ve pretty much moved past it,” Edwards said. “But the first couple were really tough. I always think about if I hadn’t gotten hurt, that would be me.”

Edwards plays for the Montreal Alouettes, and, even though he led the Canadian Football League with 17 touchdowns this season, he’s a forgotten man. So the 32-year-old running back who might otherwise be taking handoffs from Tom Brady when the Patriots play at Indianapolis on Sunday will instead be watching from his couch in Atlanta.

Another chance in the NFL would be great, Edwards said, but he’s not going to beg for one.

“I don’t want to go back to the NFL as a charity case,” he said Thursday in a telephone interview. “I want to be taken seriously. I don’t need favors. I need a fair opportunity.”

He might have been Corey Dillon.

Or Kevin Faulk.

Or Antowain Smith.

Or any of the other Patriots backs who walked away with at least one Super Bowl ring.

“I was going to play through my second contract,” Edwards said. “Go to Super Bowls, Pro Bowls, all that.”

His career once overflowed with promise. A 1998 first-round pick out of Georgia, he replaced the traded Curtis Martin and rushed for 1,115 yards as a rookie. That earned him a postseason trip to Hawaii where he and other rookies played in a promotional four-on-four flag football game on a Honolulu beach.

At one point, while bracketed by R.W. McQuarters and Charles Woodson, Edwards leaped to defend a pass. When he came down, his left knee and leg buckled.

It was no ordinary injury. Not only did Edwards suffer three torn knee ligaments, but his kneecap slid back and damaged an artery and the nerve that controlled the movement in his lower leg. The results were gruesome.

“I grabbed the top of my left knee, and the lower half was swinging like it wasn’t even connected,” he said. “I knew it was bad. I didn’t know how bad it was. I was in complete shock. I was just staring off into space. I was thinking to myself, ‘I hope this is a dream. I hope this isn’t happening.’ ”

Only after surgery did Edwards learn that doctors might have been forced to amputate his lower leg had he arrived at the hospital a few minutes later. The doctors told him he’d certainly never play football again and might not be able to walk normally.

“I was disappointed, sad, every word you could think of,” he said. “I cried a few times. Every time I thought about how I’d never play again or walk again, it just brought tears to my eyes.”

Weeks later, still under contract with New England, Edwards moved back to Georgia and began rehabilitating his leg with his college trainers. He did that for two years, sitting out the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

When he returned to the Patriots in 2001, he was the inspirational story of the off-season. The coaching staff had changed, Bill Belichick had replaced Pete Carroll, but the team was always looking for help at running back. And Edwards was ready to run. Ready, that is, until he suffered a groin injury on the first day of training camp and never again set foot on the field.

At the end of the summer, the Patriots cut him.

“It was another low moment in my life,” he said. “Coming back from the injury I couldn’t control, then to make it all the way back only to get the door slammed in my face.”

Edwards understands why he was let go. The NFL is a business, as he’s reminded over and over. Belichick didn’t really know him, wasn’t around to see him work his way back from such a devastating injury, basically judged him on what he could do at training camp -- and that was next to nothing.

Had Carroll still been coach, Edwards said, things would have been different.

“I loved Pete, man,” he said. “He gave me my opportunity. I always said that if Pete Carroll was there when I made my comeback, I’d probably still be on the team.... It was all business to Belichick.”

Regardless, the NFL dream wasn’t dead for Edwards. He signed with Miami in 2002, and, in his first game, scored two touchdowns against Detroit. He spent the rest of the season sharing third-down back duties with Travis Minor.

For reasons Edwards still doesn’t understand, the Dolphins cut him after the season. He was healthy the whole year, so that wasn’t a problem. He thinks everyone was waiting for his knee to give way again.

Two years later, after several failed attempts to hook on with NFL teams, Edwards signed with the Alouettes. The job didn’t fill his wallet like the NFL did, but it refueled his passion for football. Playing with frozen fingers, he learned, wasn’t nearly as bad as getting the cold shoulder from the Saints, Ravens, Redskins and other teams that had him work out and then let him go.

“”They don’t take the time to see if you’re a good player,” he said. “They just stamp you as damaged goods.”

But Edwards says he’s let go of the sadness and regret. He enjoys playing for the Alouettes, and he’s planning for life after football. He hopes to get into real estate development or maybe insurance sales, focusing on athletes whose careers ended early.

And, despite his NFL setbacks, the last six years have brought him some very happy moments. His daughter was born in 2000 and his son in 2004. Their names reflect where their father has been and what he’s been seeking.

One is Journee, the other Justice.

sam.farmer@latimes.com