Instead, Edwards knew the club and the fit had to be right.
And after guiding Forest Green and Luton Town to promotions against the odds, what he fancied this summer was a job where he’d have to deal with “expectation”.
At Middlesbrough – where the aim is always to be in the Championship promotion mix – his wish has been granted.
And the second Edwards learnt that he could be in contention to replace Michael Carrick at the Riverside, he says he thought “oh yeah, this could be a bit of me!”
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Edwards is eight days into his tenure as Middlesbrough head coach, the 42-year-old’s first job since he was sacked by Luton at the start of this year.
That followed a challenging spell at Kenilworth Road after the Hatters’ relegation from the Premier League, and Edwards admits he was a ready for a break after his dismissal.
But come the start of the summer, he felt refreshed and ready to return to the dugout.
And despite interest from elsewhere – Bristol City identified Edwards as a potential target after Liam Manning’s exit for Norwich – Edwards was immediately drawn to the Boro job when it became available. And soon after he discovered he could be in the mix.
“It was tough towards the end at Luton,” Edwards admitted in a Q&A on Boro’s website.
“Me personally, as the head coach or manager, everyone is looking at you and I take it all on. Sleep was difficult, eating was difficult, it was a challenge to look after myself and I know to be my best I have to manage my energy and look after myself.
“And I think that’s a good lesson for everyone. Everyone will have difficult things going on in their lives.
“You have to try and look after yourself as well. I maybe didn’t do that very well. I needed the break, I needed the rest and I needed to recharge.
“My family is the most important thing to me but football is my life, so it was never going to be a case of not going back in. It was when.
“I needed it to be the right challenge to relight my fire. It was amazing the promotions at Forest Green and Luton but we were underdogs. I really wanted a challenge like this where there’s a club with expectation and you have a real chance.
“As soon as I knew there could be interest I thought ‘oh yeah, this could be a bit of me’.
“It had to be something to get the juices flowing. That’s no disrespect to any other football club but it had to be something like this – the huge fanbase, the facilities, the stadium, we’ve got it all.
“I’m really privileged and proud to be here. All of our focus now is on delivering a team everyone can be proud of.”
And Edwards wants his Boro team to be positive, aggressive, brave and to play on the front foot.
Asked in the club Q&A whether he has any pet hates in the game, Edwards replied: “Slow football”.
After an initial short period of testing and medical assessments at Rockliffe at the end of last week, pre-season got underway on Monday, with Edwards getting his first glimpse of his players on the training pitches at the club’s Hurworth complex.
Edwards said in the Q&A: “My priorities are to get to know the players and staff. Then to set the vision of what I’m about and what they’ll get from us.
“Then it will be about developing the style of play and how we want to go about things.”
Boro’s squad will fly out to Portugal this weekend for a pre-season training camp, where they’ll play a behind closed doors friendly.
