Back when Ryan Howard was a decent character on "The Office," he gave Creed Bratton a fake blog that was just a Word document that never saw the light of day. Howard famously described Creed’s content as “pretty shocking,” even for the internet.
Albert Breer’s story about the time the Dallas Morning News gave then-Cowboys tight end Martellus Bennett a blog paints something of a similar picture. Appearing on Toucher and Rich Friday morning, Breer recounted the time that Bennett’s blog posts quickly led either the team or the newspaper to end the experiment.
“Basically the editor said, ‘Martellus, go nuts. Put whatever you want up there; just be as entertaining as you can be. We want to let the readers get to know one of the whackiest guy on the team,’” Breer recalled.
“Well, we had to shut that down within like five or six weeks because -- I can’t remember if it was us or the Cowboys (who pulled the plug) -- [but] he had blog posts up such as, ‘Why black people like fried chicken,’ ‘How to ditch a girl on a date.’ The ‘stay woke’ one here was this long, drawn-out explanation of why he thinks aliens exist. That’s why every time I see him with the NASA hat on, I crack up, because I think he’s really, like, planning on joining NASA after he’s done playing football to go find those aliens or something.”
Jokes aside, Breer pointed to Bennett’s personality as the primary reason as to why a player as talented as Bennett is currently on his fourth team. A second-round pick of the Cowboys in 2008, Bennett played four seasons in Dallas before spending one year with the Giants and then three in Chicago.
“There’s a reason why a guy that talented has been on four different teams,” Breer said. “You don’t typically see that. When guys are super talented and have moved around the league, it’s usually because they’ve worn out their welcome in different places. That’s exactly what’s happened with Marty, in Dallas, then in New York and then in Chicago.”
Thus far, Bennett has been a great fit in New England, as his four touchdowns through five games put him just two shy of his career-high. Last week against the Browns, Bennett had six grabs for 67 yards and three touchdowns.
Breer noted that the Patriots have shown an ability to take on players who might not have reached their potential, but to keep an eye on Bennett going forward.
New England Patriots
“It’s just these little things that, if you don’t have a strong program in place or you’ve gone through coaching changes or you’re not winning, it can be very, very difficult to keep him engaged,” Breer said. “Now, we’ve seen this with the Patriots before, where these aren’t issues for them and they can take guys who’ve had problems other places and make it work, but look, there’s a reason why a 6-foot-7, 270-pound tight end who blocks like a left tackle and is athletic enough to have played Division 1 college basketball, there’s a reason why that guy has never been able to find a permanent home. That’s because, in a lot of ways -- it’s not like he’s a horrible guy -- but he’s a very ,very flighty and a little strange, as you guys can tell.”