Patriots, Past and Present, Respond to Other Players Saying Pats' Culture Isn't 'Fun'

The New England Patriots' culture has become a topic of conversation among NFL fans, thanks to former Patriots defensive end Cassius Marsh. Marsh, who briefly played for the team this past season, recently said there is "nothing fun" about playing for Bill Belichick's team.

"They asked me to do a bunch of stuff that I had never done: covering running backs and receivers and basically almost never rushing the passer, which is what I did in playing defensive line," Marsh said, according to Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle. "They don't have fun there. There's nothing fun about it. There's nothing happy about it. I didn't enjoy any of my time there, you know what I'm saying? It made me for the first time in my life think about not playing football because I hated it that much."

Eagles offensive tackle Lane Johnson had a similar take about New England.

"All the media wants to talk about is rings," Johnson said. "Rings. I'm going to get this ring and never wear it one day. I'm going to put it away in a box. The only thing you're going to remember from your playing days, you're not going to remember the scores. You're going to remember the people you played with and how you felt. And that's the truth. All these guys talking about, 'I'll take the rings.' OK. You can have your rings. You can also have [expletive] 15 miserable years."

In response, both current and former Pats players have stepped up to defend the culture.