Martellus Bennett Explains How Belichick is Still Coaching Brady Hard After All These Years and It's Magnificent

There’s so, so much good here. Cris Carter explaining how the Patriots found themselves facing three different postseason teams who couldn’t field a 230-pound linebacker so they just went Jumbo on offense and Hulk-smashed their way to the championship. Nick Wright, who’s a card-carrying Patriots Doomsday Prepper:

… having to eat the shit sandwich of listening to Carter and a retired Patriot discussing how they’ll replace Gronk’s productivity. But nothing is better than that player, Martellus Bennett, give us an insider’s first-person account of how the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady dynamic operates, even after all these years:

“One day we were at practice and the defense is crushing us. We can’t complete no passes. Sometimes they do the install and it’s just the right install. So we come into the meeting and Bill always had Bad Plays of the Day and he’s just calling out Tom, ‘We have quarterbacks that can’t make throws.’ I’m like ‘This is Tom Brady. He can make all the throws.’

“And I’ve never seen coaches really call out the quarterbacks in group meetings. So I was like … I sit right behind Tom because I’m the Quarterback Whisperer. I like to whisper in their ear when I see things. So, after we break that meeting, I go to finish my workout or whatever and Tom is in there doing dropbacks. He’s just throwing dropbacks. He’s pissed off. The next day we go 33 for 33 or something like that at practice, and from then I was just like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be great.’ I’ve never seen anyone that didn’t shut down. He was like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna show you tomorrow.’ He just picked them apart. Take this, take that.”

Then he’s asked about what’s typically the fallout when a star gets called out:

“You’ll see a lot of guys retreat. Oh, why are you pointing me out? Why are you doing this or doing that? I’m this guy or that. …

“He’ll call out anybody. I try not to laugh sometimes because, like, the way he does it is funny to me. I find Bill to be hilarious. But he calls everybody out. That’s one thing; that’s the first team I’ve been on where I felt everyone was equal. It was horizontal. There wasn’t a vertical leadership.”

And asked about how Michael Bennett will deal with it:

“He’s going to do very well. Here’s the thing about NFL players: They actually like structure and they like to be coached. And the issue is a lot of coaches don’t just coach. They want to change you as people. Change us as football players. I have a father. I don’t need a dad. I need a coach to make me a better football player. And the Patriots, they focus on you as a football player. And I think a lot of guys really thrive in that environment.”

Annnd … I’m spent. If there’s anything I’d like to hear more in the beginning of May, other than “Gronk just announced he’s unretiring,” I can’t think of what it is. Here’s Tom Brady, so much better than everyone else has been he’s lapped the field in the GOAT race, and he’s still willing to get dumped on at practice and in the meeting rooms in front of a whole team of mere mortals. He’s been doing it for so long that the only other guy from his draft class, Sebastian Janikowski (drafted 182 spots higher, took the field 10 times a game, never took a hit), just retired. And still he takes the abuse. In fact, he still uses it as rocket fuel to drive him to go out after meetings, work on his dropbacks and take a wrecking ball to his defense the next day.

And not just when Bennett was playing, but now. Present tense:

I could go on and on about how Aaron Rodgers just got his coach fired and Ben Roethlisberger held open dick-measuring competitions against his best receiver and best running back and how they’re both pretty much resented by major portions of their very divided locker rooms. But I won’t get into that.

This is about Brady buying into his team’s culture, being accountable, striving to improve, and putting the greater good above his own ego. Which makes everyone else have to fall in line as well. From the cornerstone member of the team’s Three Ring Club to some UDFA rookie to an established star in the league like Michael Bennett, who’s already been around two different championship teams. That’s all I’m here to discuss in today’s TED Talk.

My only question is whether Seth Wickersham, Mike Felger, Max Kellerman and anyone else who sold the fiction of the Pliability War “rift” is still buying into it after hearing Martysaurus’ eyewitness testimony about what total bullshit it all was?