Well the release of Patriots 2014 1st round pick Dominique Easley has certainly opened up the floodgates to look at how the defensive tackle is viewed around the league.
Keep in mind that these quotes are not generated out of a desire to trash a player on the way out of town. Easley has been released at an extremely odd time, which makes it seem like there is something troubling below the surface and this is the first time that members of the media are digging around to find out the real story.
It's not pretty.
The Boston Globe went in depth to acquire testimonies from those close to the Patriots and around the league to see why New England felt the need to release such an intriguing talent so early in his career.
Two separate league sources told the Globe that the 24-year-old Easley is "a 25-year-old in a 40-year-old's body."
"Saw that coming," said one of Easley's former Patriots teammates. "Injuries and locker room cancer."
"He'll make an appointment for a massage and not show up," one source told the Globe. "He's just very disrespectful and irresponsible."
"I think he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way," another source added. "He comes across as an entitled kid. He reneges on everything. He thinks he's invincible."
But one of the biggest stories unearthed by the Globe relates to Easley's first interactions with the team.
Easley's relationship with the Patriots got off on the wrong foot when he arrived to their rookie minicamp shortly after the 2014 draft and couldn't participate- not because of his knee injury, but because of injuries to his ankles, arms, and wrists sustained when bitten by his pet pitbull two weeks before the draft. The dog, which weighed more than 100 pounds, bit two other people plus an animal care worker and had to be euthanized in Palm Beach County, Fla.
Easley had not told any teams about these injuries prior to the draft, and the Patriots were not happy when they found out, as the injuries set him back in his ACL rehab.
That's crazy and you can be certain that Bill Belichick must have been furious.
On the topic of injuries, the Globe notes that Easley would "ignore requests" to work with the team trainers at the team facilities, but instead "immediately left the team and did his own thing."
"The Patriots grew so fed up with Easley during his rookie year," the Globe writes. "That they placed him on IR in December and told him to stay away and rehab on his own until the offseason program began in April. When the Patriots were raising the Lombardi Trophy in Arizona, Easley was partying in Las Vegas."
Former Globe writer Shalise Manza Young adds that in a discussion with an executive for an NFC team about Easley, the executive said "he's a turd." Young also notes that Belichick sided with Mike Lombardi over the team scouts when it came to drafting Easley.
There were a lot of ways where this draft pick went wrong and the Patriots were just fed up with Easley not following the team directives and not becoming a part of the team.