If anything has become obvious, it’s that very few people, if any, truly knew Aaron Hernandez.
The people who worked alongside him are not exempt from that, as several said he was as mysterious around the Patriots as he is to investigators now.
Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald spoke to a number of his former teammates, and while none gave their names, there was a general sense that Hernandez was an enigma to them.
“No one hung out with him,” one player said. “No one.”
Another added: “Out of 53 guys, surely there’s someone you could find to hang out with. Instead, he chose to revert to his network from his hometown.”
The reliance on old friends plays into the “influenced by a bad crowd” blanket that is being thrown over Hernandez by many at the moment. Of course, those in his old neighborhood could easily point to him as being the bad element that was dragging them down.
But while former Patriots teammate Deion Branch was the only teammate to refer to him as a “a great guy and a great friend,” others apparently didn’t share that opinion.
“I just think he fooled everyone,” a former teammate said.
That can’t be argued, even by those who claim with the benefit of hindsight they were scared away from him.