FOXBOROUGH -- Julian Edelman has only been a member of the Patriots for three-plus months, but he sounds like he’s well aware as to how they do things at Gillette Stadium.

Through the spring practices and the first week or so of training camp, the 6-foot, 195-pound Edelman has worked as a receiver and punt and kick returner. A seventh-round pick who played quarterback at Kent State, he knows he can’t afford to focus on doing just one job -- positional flexibility is going to be what lands him on the final 53-man roster.

“Everyone does that -- especially at this place,” Edelman said after Monday morning practice at training camp. “Coach expects a lot of you, to be able to play a bunch of positions and know everything. It’s just what I’m doing right now.”

The more you can do, the more you can do to help us. It’s a constant theme for the Patriots. And it’s what’s brought Edelman -- a converted college quarterback with great wheels -- to New England to try and become Wes Welker, version 2.0.

As a senior at Kent State, he led the country in rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,370, including eight games of 100 yards or more. He also passed for 1,820 yards. In all, he played in 31 games as a collegian, finishing with 4,997 yards passing and 2,664 yards rushing. While his quarterbacking skills wouldn’t necessarily translate to the next level, the thought of using Edelman as a potential offensive chess piece appealed to the New England brass.

“When we worked him out there, we worked him out as a receiver,” said Patriots coach Bill Belichick. “We worked him out as a quarterback. We worked him out as a running back and worked him out as a returner. We looked at all the different skills that we thought we could potentially work him at and that was part of his evaluation, as well as his actual playing at Kent State.”

Moving from one offensive skill position to another is nothing new for a New England rookie. Belichick said Monday that former running back Patrick Pass was shifted around the field in his first training camp before being returned to the backfield, and that he has coached other players who have undergone the same move that Edelman is now facing.

However, Edelman does have Welker’s experience as a partial roadmap. In his early years with the Dolphins, Welker became one of the great spare parts, able to be plugged in all over the field at a moment's notice. (In 2004, Welker was the first player in NFL history to return a punt, return a kick, kick a field goal, kick an extra point and kick off, all in the same game.)

Welker hasn’t done any kicking since he got to New England, but his overall skill set (he’s 5-foot-9, while Edelman’s barely six-feet) and chip-on-my-shoulder approach (Welker was an undrafted free agent coming out of college, while Edelman was a seventh-rounder out of unheralded Kent State) can provide a positive template for Edelman. To that end, Edelman has stuck close to Welker throughout the spring practices and into the early days of training camp.

“Right now, all I can do is go out there and learn from Wes and watch him every day and learn from one of the best,” Edelman said. “That’s all I do right now -- be quiet and try not to be heard and be seen. That’s all I can really do right now is just watch that guy and take the coaching that they give us.

As it is for every NFL rookie at this stage of the summer, it has been a learning process for the 23-year-old. Edelman struggled in the return game earlier in camp, dropping a pair of punt returns. (He caught his next attempt, drawing what sounded like a mock cheer from the crowd.) He slipped and fell while going through a passing drill during Monday morning’s practice, but stood off to the side, watched Welker execute the drill seamlessly, and then hopped back in and got it right.

“It’s just repetition in practice,” Edelman said, who was back working on punt returns during the Monday afternoon practice session, where he caught several punts in both pre-practice drills and in practice itself.

“I have to practice -- obviously -- a lot more. It’s all about experience. I’m about a thousand punts away from where I want to be, so I’ll be getting that practice after practices and before practices here soon. All I can do is take advantages of the opportunities they’ve given me.”