Martellus Bennett won a Super Bowl in 2016, his first year with the Patriots. However, he does not have the best memories about the start of that season.
With Tom Brady serving his four-game DeflateGate suspension, then-third-year quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was set to start a few games for the first month of the year. In Week one, he led them to a victory. He was great in Week 2 before suffering a shoulder injury. His injury kept him out action in a short week on a Thursday night game as well as the Patriots’ home date with the Buffalo Bills in Week 4.
Speaking on Devin and Jason McCourty’s “Double Coverage” podcast, Bennett did not mince a single word when speaking on Garoppolo apparently deciding at the last minute to not play vs. the Bills.
“Bro, we lost two games [in 2016]. One of ’em was because Jimmy Garoppolo was being a b—- and didn’t, he quit before us on the last … He decided not to play right before the game,” said Bennett, who caught a touchdown from Garoppolo in Week 2 of that season. “So we went there, Jacoby came out and played with a [bleeped] up thumb and played his heart out. But Jimmy was just being a b—- about it all, and he’s still being like … that’s why, you can’t win with a b—- for a quarterback, first of all.”
“So that was the whole thing with him, he didn’t want to come out and like 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’ve made that decision on Thursday, not on Sunday, you know what I’m saying?” Bennett said. “So anyway, so he’s not going out there, so Jacoby straps up and we lost to the Buffalo Bills, which we shouldn’t have lost. It was just a last minute, trying to make adjustments for what Jacoby could do.”
Brissett was forced to start against Buffalo instead, passing for just 205 yards with zero touchdowns in the shutout defeat.
Garoppolo would eventually be traded down the road before Halloween in 2017. He’d start five games for his new team in San Francisco before signing a monster contract for five years and $137.5 million.
Garoppolo has since started 29 of a possible 53 games for the 49ers. He is on the cusp of being replaced by Trey Lance at some point.
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