Giants TE Bennett has hoops background
Texas A&M's Martellus Bennett (2) shoots over Oklahoma's Longar Longar (30) in the first half in a NCAA basketball game. (Jan. 27, 2007) Credit: AP
Like many of the game's top tight ends these days, Martellus Bennett's first desire was to play on a court, not a gridiron.
Before he wanted to be an NFL tight end -- and long before he wanted to be a Giants tight end -- Bennett wanted to be a basketball star. He was so focused on that goal that when he came out of high school in Texas, he declared himself eligible for the 2005 NBA draft -- the same draft that brought Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Andrew Bynum to the pro ranks.
Bennett never hired an agent, so he was able to pull out of consideration when it became clear that he would not be a first-round pick. Still, even as he attended Texas A&M and played both sports for two years, there was always the suspicion that when he turned professional, he would be blocking shots, not linebackers.
"I thought if I played one year of basketball in college, I could come out again [in the NBA draft] and re-pursue that dream," he said. "But when I started playing football, I fell in love with football again. I played basketball at A&M but I felt that football was my first love and I was just playing basketball. That's why I gave it up."
That . . . and averaging 1.9 points and 1.5 rebounds per game.
It wasn't until he quit basketball after his sophomore season that Bennett focused solely on football. Even at the NFL combine before he was drafted by the Cowboys in 2008, there were questions about his athletic desires.
"I would say football is my wife," he told reporters there, "and basketball is my mistress."
Bennett, who signed a one-year prove-it deal with the Giants this past week, is far from the only tight end in the NFL to have such a complicated relationship. Jimmy Graham, who was a breakout player for the Saints, played mostly basketball at the University of Miami before switching to football. Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates played college basketball. So did former Giants tight end Kevin Boss, who recently signed with the Chiefs.
Bennett played on an AAU basketball team in Houston, and one of his teammates on that squad was current Packers tight end Jermichael Finley.
Bennett has yet to make the impact on the NFL that those other former hoopsters have. He has the same body type -- 6-6, 270 pounds -- and roughly the same athleticism. But he doesn't have nearly the same number of receptions. In 2011, he had 17 catches for 144 yards. For a player such as Graham, that's a good game, never mind an entire season.
But Bennett thinks coming to the Giants will give him the opportunity he didn't get with the Cowboys. That, he said, is the only thing that separates him from the Grahams, Gonzalezes and Gronkowskis of the league.
"You look at those guys, they get a lot of opportunities to make a lot of plays," he said. "I think I'm going to get a lot of those opportunities. I'm going to seize the moment . . . I always looked at myself as a good player, but I always want to be great. I think this is a place where I can be great."
