Aaron Hernandez 'whipped it out' around teammates according to...Patriots teammates.
“There would be swings where he’d be the most hyper-masculine, aggressive individual in the room, where he’d be ready to fight somebody in fits of rage,” former Patriots receiver Brandon Lloyd told the newspaper as part of its six-part investigative series into Hernandez’s troubling life. “Or he’d be the most sensitive person in the room, talking about cuddling with his mother. Or he’d ask me, ‘Do you think I’m good enough to play?'”
Lloyd recalled being warned by Wes Welker, a six-year veteran of the team, about Hernandez’s off-putting behavior.
“He is looking at me wide-eyed. And he says, ‘I just want to warn you that [Hernandez] is going to talk about being bathed by his mother,’” Lloyd said. “’He’s going to have his genitalia out in front of you while you’re sitting on your stool. He’s going to talk about gay sex. Just do your best to ignore it. Even walk away.’ ’’
Hernandez also once threatened to “f–k up” Welker in the early days of training camp after the ex-Dolphin teased him about needing help in the film room, people who were familiar with the incident told the Globe.
The talented tight end suddenly snapped one day when he was horsing around on the sidelines during non-contact practice called a “walkthrough.”
“He was out at the walkthrough in flip-flops trying to run around,’’ Lloyd recalled. “He was laughing. He was loud. And Tom [Brady] keeps it serious in the walkthrough. And Tom says, ‘Shut the f–k up. Get the f–k out of here.’
“It was like he went from this child-like, laughing, disruptive behavior … and he storms off in a fit of rage.’’
Hernandez also pleaded with Bill Belichick to trade him because he feared rivals would take him out.
The troubled tight end confided in his coach about his concerns in late February 2013, as he grew increasingly paranoid amid an escalating war with his personal assistant-turned-rival Alexander Bradley.
Two accounts of the private meeting inside an upscale hotel room in Indianapolis were published for the first time Wednesday as part of a six-part investigative series by the Boston Globe.
Hernandez told Belichick that someone might “try to take him out,” according to grand jury testimony from Hernandez’s agent, Brian Murphy, that was obtained by the Globe.
Murphy said there were “several occasions where we would be at [Gillette] Stadium or we’d be at a restaurant near the stadium and he was afraid that someone was following him or that someone was going to attack him.”
Hernandez feared he’d be shot on the gridiron and told the coach that “he and his family would be a lot safer on the other side of the country,” according to Murphy.
“He wanted to talk to coach Belichick about possibly being traded or released so he could go play for one of the West Coast teams,” Murphy told the grand jury.
But Belichick told Hernandez, who had six years left on a $41 million contract, it was a no-go.
“We can’t trade you; we can’t release you for numerous reasons,” Belichick said, according to Murphy.
Hernandez recounted the meeting afterward to Murphy, who was also in Indianapolis that weekend for the NFL Combine for college players ahead of the league’s draft.
The Globe also published Belichick’s slightly different account of the meeting, as told to state troopers and a North Attleborough police captain in 2013.
In the interview with the coach, which wasn’t recorded, he said Hernandez “was concerned about the safety of his daughter and his girl” because “people might potentially harm” them.
Hernandez, however, “was not concerned about his own safety because he had money,” Belichick told the cops.
“William Belichick further indicated that Aaron Hernandez expressed interest in relocating, even though he had only recently purchased his home” in North Attleborough, which didn’t have adequate security, the police report said.
Belichick told cops he offered to put Hernandez in touch with Mark Briggs, the team’s head of security. But Hernandez declined.
Instead, Belichick enlisted a Pats staffer to help Hernandez find a new place to rent — a $1,200-a-month, two-bedroom apartment that became his flophouse, a secret location that only his ex-convict pals knew about.
There’s no evidence that Belichick reported Hernandez’s concerns to police or the Patriots’ security chief, the Globe noted.
Hernandez’s paranoia stemmed from a growing beef with Bradley, who later accused him of firing the shots that killed two men outside a nightclub in Boston’s South End in 2012.
Hernandez was acquitted of the double murder in April 2017 — while serving life in prison for killing another man, Odin Lloyd. The week after he was cleared of the charges, the 27-year-old committed suicide in his prison cell.
Bradley was trying to extort Hernandez for allegedly shooting him in the face and leaving him for dead in West Palm Beach, Florida, in February 2013 — a shooting for which Hernandez was never charged.
“Since u tried 2 end me i will end u if u dont do what u gotta do,” Bradley threatened in a series of texts obtained by the Globe.
Alrighty then.
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