Former New England Patriots tight end Martellus Bennett is not a big fan of Jimmy Garoppolo, to say the least.
Bennett and Garoppolo were teammates on the 2016 Patriots, the team that ultimately came back to beat the Atlanta Falcons and win the Super Bowl. That was also the season that saw Tom Brady suspended for the first four games over the Deflategate scandal.
Bennett appeared on Devin and Jason McCourty’s “Double Coverage” podcast this week and reminisced about that team. He offered some scathing commentary on Garoppolo, who Bennett claims handled himself poorly during Brady’s absence.
“Bro, we lost two games,” Bennett said, via Darren Hartwell of NBC Sports Boston. “One of them was because Jimmy Garoppolo was being a b—-. He decided not to play right before the game. Jacoby (Brissett) came out and played with a f—ed up thumb and played his heart out, but Jimmy was just being a b—- about it all.
“That’s why he … you can’t win with a b—- for a quarterback, first of all. That was the whole thing with him: He didn’t want to come out and do anything because his agent was trying to protect his body or some s— like that. Which, I can’t fault him for that. But like, you should have made that decision on Thursday. Now it’s Sunday.”
In Bennett’s version of events, Garoppolo did the team a disservice by waiting so long to rule himself out, forcing Brissett into action on short notice. Garoppolo did have a legitimate injury at the time, though it’s also true that the decision to start Brissett wasn’t made until gameday. Whether that’s because of what Bennett claims or whether the Patriots genuinely wanted to try to get Garoppolo ready to play is not clear.
Other Patriots at the time seemed to be more on board with Garoppolo. However, with Garoppolo’s current coach looking eager to move on, Bennett may feel a bit vindicated.
