Report: Brandon Marshall 'Irked' Jets Teammates With Halftime Rant During Patriots Blowout
BOSTON (CBS) -- Brandon Marshall said in an interview leading up to the Jets' 41-3 blowout loss to the Patriots on Christmas Eve that the Patriots wouldn't be right for him because he would be a "rental player." A new report suggests that he would also disrupt the locker room.
According to ESPN's Rich Cimini, the mercurial Jets receiver "irked" some of his teammates with a "fiery" rant at halftime, when the Jets were down 27-0. Marshall told ESPN that his intention was to "fire up the team," but some of his teammates didn't see it that way. According to the report, Marshall did not provoke any altercations but did cause a "raucous locker room."
Jets defensive end Sheldon Richardson was asked after the game about Marshall calling the loss "embarrassing," to which he cryptically said, "He should be embarrassed. ... He knows what he did."
Jets safety Calvin Pryor suggested that Marshall's rant went beyond firing up the team and became divisive and counterproductive.
"When we're getting blown out at halftime, there's no reason to be fighting amongst each other. ... I think that's why guys were upset, because we needed to be fighting against the Patriots instead of the Jets."
Pryor also expressed his disappointment that "stuff seems to leak out from [the Jets'] locker room," making incidents like Marshall's rant seem less common than they are with NFL teams.
Marshall was held to just two catches on four targets for 28 yards in the game. He wasn't targeted until there was 4:53 left in the second quarter, when Patriots cornerback Eric Rowe intercepted the pass from Ryan Fitzpatrick.
