Michael Bennett evidently pushed a few of the wrong buttons with the Patriots last week, and Eric Mangini can’t help but wonder what the veteran defensive lineman was thinking.
The Patriots recently hit Bennett with a one-game suspension for “detrimental conduct.” The 33-year-old, whose playing time has decreased with each passing week, claims he had a “philosophical disagreement” with New England’s coaching staff over his role, and his future in Foxboro now is looking bleak at best.
This would have been tough to foresee a few months back when the Patriots not only traded for Bennett but boosted his salary for the 2019 campaign. Nothing is guaranteed in New England, however, and Mangini believes Bennett should have been well aware of this notion when he came on board.
“Look, I don’t think there’s turmoil,” Mangini said Wednesday on FS1’s “First Things First.” “They’ve been there 20 years, you think you’re gonna be the one that goes in there and changes the way things are done? Like, you join the military and you’re surprised you gotta go fight? You know what you’re getting into when you go to New England. What did you expect? You have to play a role. Is that shocking? Your brother was there. You have to play a role. If you play the role well, you get more playing time. If you don’t play the role well, then you get less playing time. It’s a meritocracy. Nobody cares what you did in Seattle or Tampa Bay or how they did business. That’s not how business is done there (in New England). So, you go, you take your lumps, you’re gone for a week, they pick up $400,000 in the cap or whatever it is for his salary and you decide whether or not you want to come back and do things the right way or whether or not you want to keep trying to fight a system that nobody’s won against and you’re not gonna win against either.”
The Patriots could have gone in a few different directions with their discipline of Bennett. Considering he hasn’t been a key contributor through six games, it wouldn’t have been much sweat off New England’s back if it released or traded the three-time Pro Bowl selection. But as Mangini explained, cutting ties with Bennett probably would have granted him exactly what he wanted.
“No. Not at all. It makes sense,” Mangini said when asked if he was surprised by the suspension. “Look at his comments after it happened. Sometimes you’re surprised when someone actually follows through on a threat that they make. You’re surprised that when there’s discipline at a place and the punishment that they say they’re gonna do is handed out. That’s a little bit of a wake-up call. It happens all the time where it’s ‘Hey, we’re gonna do this and gonna do this’ and you never do it. So, what do you learn? You learn that you can do whatever you want.”
Still, a Bennett trade probably shouldn’t be entirely ruled out. ESPN, for one, views the D-lineman as a “viable candidate” to be dealt as the deadline approaches.
