HOUSTON—Thank heaven for Martellus Bennett, the man who is saving Super Bowl week.

The 21st-century NFL is many things: flashy, expansive, relentlessly commercial. What it’s not is unpredictable. Strip away the fact that this week will end in a football game, and Houston is hosting a sleek, well-produced corporate event. And like all corporate events that proceed on schedule, it can be a bit, well … boring.

Which is where Bennett comes in. The Patriots tight end stands in stark contrast to the Belichickian demeanor of his teammates and the focus-on-the-field Falcons. Bennett’s conversations with the media have been free-floating explorations of art, science, philosophy and nostalgia. Wednesday afternoon was no exception.

Trying to track Bennett’s thought processes is like trying to bring him down in the open field, so sit back and enjoy the best of the Mind of Martellus:

On his favorite foods:

“My family’s very, very black. Very, very South. We’re from Louisiana. So, red beans and rice, candied yams, greens, cornbread, fried chicken, and purple Kool-Aid. We don’t call it by the flavors. We only call it by the colors.”

On playing in a Super Bowl in his hometown:

“Before every game you think about everything you’ve been through to get to where you are.. So to be back in the same place where you started, running those wind sprints, to get to this platform has been very interesting and kind of surreal for the most part. I drive by the hills that I ran on, the streets that I played on with my brother and my friends. The Super Bowl was our cul-de-sac, and now we’re in the real Super Bowl.”

On the joy of cursing:

“Sometimes the best way to say something is with a curse word. You can say, ‘Man, that’s great,” and that’s cool. But if you say, ‘F—, that’s great!” everyone will be saying, ‘man, that must be really damn awesome.’ I know y’all can’t use that on TV.”

On going to a Super Bowl with one’s spouse (note that this was delivered with love):

“I never went into the stadium for the Super Bowl [when his brother Michael played for the Seahawks], but I was in town. My wife was pregnant at the time, and I didn’t want her sitting in the stands because I didn’t want to have to deal with her. Dealing with a pregnant wife in the stadium and all those people and there’s so many hormones and so many people, you can’t really enjoy the game. She might want a pickle, and then she might want popcorn. Next thing you know she wants ice cream. And you’ve got to go get it because she can’t really walk. And she wants to wear heels because they’re sexy, but her feet hurt. You try to tell her to put on some New Balances because they’re comfortable, but they don’t look as good with her clothes. That’s a football game in itself.”

On continuing his education:

“I was thinking about going back to school this offseason to get a degree, but the only school I’d want to attend is Hogwarts.”

On racial dynamics in horror movies:

“If you want to be in a scary movie as a black guy, you’ve got to recruit other black people for it. The black cast member gets killed off first. So your best bet is to have multiple black people in the cast with you. Then your chances of survival go up. If you’re the only black guy in a cast of white people, they’ll say, ‘There’s a noise in the basement, let’s go check it out.’ And I’m like, ‘man, I don’t think we should do that.’ And they’re like, ‘we should really check it out, dude.’ And I’m like ‘that sounds like a bad idea.’ And then you get killed on the couch, and you’re thinking, ‘I should have gone down there with them.’”

On his role with the Patriots:

“There’s games where I have to block 45 times and I run eight routes. There’s guys out there, I watch tapes, and they don’t block anybody. And I’m like, ‘That must be nice.’ But then I look at how they leave their teammates hanging, the running back comes through the hole and gets crushed because the tight end didn’t want to block or stick his head in there. I’m not a fantasy football tight end. You draft me, and you may be pissed off: one week he goes for 120, the next three weeks he gets 30 yards receiving. Whatever they ask me to do, I’ll do.”

On note-taking:

“I take the best notes. It’s probably because I like my own handwriting. So I like to write a lot because I think it’s so pretty.”

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