Martellus Bennett is among current and former NFL players who are quite unhappy with comments Drew Brees made earlier in the day on Wednesday. Bennett took to Twitter to voice his displeasure and ended up going on a lengthy rant that took aim at Brees first, then the NFL in general not long after. Bennett is a former tight end who played for 10 seasons in the NFL.
He started his comments by saying, “Damn y’all thought Drew would say something different than what he did ?”
He then went after all of the quarterbacks like Brees, saying no “white quarterbacks” ever really stood for anything. He added if they cared about anything at all, it was simply protecting their “Captain America” type public images. He also said none of those players took a stand for Colin Kaepernick or police brutality when it was unpopular to do so. Bennett said they are only coming forward now and writing statements on social media because it’s more accepted to do so.
Bennett also appeared to call out one of his own former teammates. In one part of the thread, the former player said that “locking arms was always stupid.” Earlier in the day on Wednesday, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers posted a picture of the QB standing and locking arms with his teammates.
Alongside the picture was a statement from Rodgers voicing his support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Rodgers and Bennett played on the Packers for part of the 2017 season.
Bennett went on to say the linking of arms was no different than the corporate statements about BLM that have been getting issued over the last week. He added that when these white quarterbacks had a chance to “make a play” for their black teammates, most of them “remained silent, showed ignorance, or didn’t say anything of importance when it was really needed.”
Bennet also said he wanted to be sure people understood he’s happy players are starting to come forward and say something. However, he also wanted to make it clear he believes they are only speaking now because they have a kind of safety net.
Turning his attention back to Brees, the former tight end was outraged the Saints quarterback still doesn’t understand what Colin Kaepernick and others were doing when they took a knee. He accused Brees of spreading a false narrative about why players were taking a knee during the national anthem. He then told the quarterback to get informed and “read a book.”