Martellus Bennett was in Japan when Bill Belichick called. The legendary New England Patriots head coach wasn’t surprised to find Bennett in such a far-flung locale. “You’re always somewhere,” Bennett recalls a bemused Belichick telling him. It was February 2018, and the veteran tight end had just reached his second straight Super Bowl with the Patriots; Belichick, Bennett says, was calling to talk about his plans for the next season. Most players would have seized the opportunity to make a pitch for playing time. Bennett told his coach he’d have to get back to him. Something was happening.
Bennett had undertaken the solitary, 10-day trip to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka in search of illumination. His tumultuous 2017 season had begun with a new team, the Packers. Green Bay is a famous football town, but Bennett found it worse than inhospitable. “The way you feel the coldness when you walk into a freezer, you could feel the racism there,” he told me recently. He finished the season back in New England, but injury kept him off the field during the team’s playoff run, which ended in a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Now, as he toured Tokyo (with a guide who had been recommended by the Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who, even in Japan, knew a guy) and explored the Tenryuji Temple and Shinto shrines, Bennett found the clarity he sought. “It hit me,” he said. “I do not love everything that I do. In fact, I hate more about it than I love.” Rather than continue playing, Bennett hung up his cleats.
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