Not talking to you, brother Michael. Not talking to you, close Aggie friends who have been alongside the rookie tight end the last few years.
Talking to the rest of you, or us, who think we know Martellus Bennett from what we saw on HBO's "Hard Knocks."
Don't misunderstand, please. Great show, "Hard Knocks." Loved it. Great exposure for the franchise, interesting depictions of decision-making and the workings of a training camp.
But it was a six-week movie. Movies aren't necessarily real life, they're reel life. There's an editing process you don't see. For instance, you see and hear coaches in a press box during a game, reacting to a play. Turns out, in the TV show in your living room, the reaction may or may not have been to the play the movie just showed. They don't tell you that.
It's important to know, because if all you know of Martellus Bennett (or, for that matter, Cowboys' tight ends coach John Garrett) is what you saw on "Hard Knocks," you probably think Bennett's an immature goofball who can't remember to tuck in his shirt, and Garrett is a harpy, a shrewish pain in the butt who can't leave a kid alone. Neither is anywhere close to being the truth.
The truth is, John Garrett is an outstanding football coach who could handle four or five jobs on the staff, and the Cowboys are lucky to have him.
And the truth is, Martellus Bennett is a barely 21-year-old with enormous talent with whom the Cowboys are more than happy. The truth is that while Bennett is a long, long way from a finished product, he is prideful and wants to be good and wants to play football. And he's coachable. These are not things you assumed from the television movie.
Neither of them, however, has any complaints with the show. Bennett is quick to say he agrees people don't know him, but he doesn't blame that on "Hard Knocks."
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"I don't think that had a lot to do with it (people not knowing him)," he said after work Monday afternoon. "I'm a weird person. It's kind of hard to get a feel for me. "Hard Knocks" sometimes put clips together that portrayed me in a negative way, but they were just trying to build a story line, and they built great story lines. I had fun working with them and doing the clips and the interviews and stuff. But that's just a little bit. There's so much more to me than football and the person that I am."
Well, hold on a minute, now. Not everyone describes himself as "weird." What makes you say you're a weird person, Martellus?
"Ask my teammates," Bennett says with a little grin. "They're always asking me, 'Man, what's wrong with you?' Part of it is my demeanor. I'm extremely laid back at all times. If I make a big play or do anything, I just casually walk back to the huddle. That's just me, it's just how I am. Sometimes people say, 'You don't look too excited to be out there.' But really I'm burning on the inside just to get a chance to make another play, or to play. I call it the triple-C's: cool, calm and collected. I've been like that for a long time."
Here's another way he is: eager to learn and already smart.
"He takes coaching very well," says Garrett. "He can see it. You can tell him something once, he gets it. (Jason) Witten is like that. He can visualize the front. I'm so pleasantly surprised by how few assignment errors he's had in the running game. Martellus is naturally smart and instinctive."
Here's an example: Bennett's 20-yard catch against Philadelphia came from a formation and on a play where he had had perhaps one practice repetition. He performed his assignment exactly right. And he gets his greatest praise from his coaches as a blocker
in the running game, something he did more of at A&M.
"We've got a lot of work to do," says Garrett. "But one question you ask about a guy at this position is, can he still block his man when he's in a compromising position. In other words, maybe he has the right technique, the right step, and his man still gets him off balance and out of position a little. Can you still block the guy? Martellus shows the ability to do that. Doing that shows strength, it shows talent and it shows competitiveness."
But there is that work to be done, lest Bennett or anyone else think he has come all the way in a short time. And it doesn't take John Garrett long to tick off the list of things at which Number 80 needs to improve:
"He needs better footwork in run blocking and pass protection. He needs better hand and hat placement. He needs better release technique. He needs a lot of work smoothing out the top of his pass routes."
And he has a willing teacher, and Bennett knows it.
"The TV show portrayed our relationship in kind of a negative way," he says, "but Coach looks at me kind of like his project, like a son. He pats me on the back when I do well. He just wants me to be the best player I can be. We have a real good relationship. I'm goofy and I try to make him relax a little bit. He tries to remind me it's business all the time and I try to remind him to chill out. Sometimes I try to tell him a joke. He might say, 'You should be concentrating on the game, Martellus,' but he's a funny guy. People don't see that side of him. He's making me into a lot better player than I was coming in. A lot of the things I do on the field I owe to him and the way he's coaching me up to make those plays."
And a lot of it is what Bennett brings to the job. Blocking?
"I take a lot of pride in my blocking. I feel like they should be able to run to my side when I'm singled up on a linebacker or a defensive end every time. A defensive end hit me in my mouth, I hit him in his mouth. I'm out there playing with a grudge against people I don't even know. That's the weird thing. In college, you play against the same people for a couple of years, you build a relationship. Now I've just got grudges against everybody. When you've got guys like Marion (Barber) and Felix (Jones) behind you, you just want to hold your guy up a little bit. That's fun, too."
Same with special teams, where if you looked closely the other night you could see Number 80 streaking downfield covering punts and kicks. Bennett has figured out what an important part of the job it is. Figured it out, he says, after the first preseason game.
"I didn't really play special teams in college," he says, "but here it can change a game."
How does Martellus Bennett see himself improving?
"I get better play by play. A lot of people get better game by game. I'm getting better play by play."
And what does he see as his list of things to improve?
"Everything. Every game is a new experience. Every time I come to the sideline, (Tony) Romo is telling me something or coach is calling me. There are a lot of people coaching me up and I'm always looking to learn."
"He cares," says John Garrett. "Martellus is prideful. That demeanor is a façade as soon as he knows you and knows you want to help him. We came back from camp, he's out there doing extra running after practice. I didn't tell him to do that. He knew he wouldn't be getting as many reps in practice and he'd have to be working harder to stay in shape."
More reps are coming. "Hard Knocks" was fun. What Martellus Bennett is doing now is available to see every Sunday on true reality TV.
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Brad Sham - 
