Matthew Bergeron didn’t arrive at Syracuse with the kind of buzz that usually follows a future NFL star. In Victoriaville, though, the story has turned into something much bigger.
The Quebec town is known more for hockey than football, and for years the New England Patriots were the NFL team most people leaned toward. That has changed.
At local youth football practices, Falcons jerseys are everywhere, and the No. 65 Bergeron wears has become the most common sight.
That kind of hometown pride makes sense now. Bergeron, the only football player from Victoriaville to ever land a NCAA Division I scholarship, went on to become a star at Syracuse from 2019-2022. He started 39 games, served as captain in 2022 and left school as the 38th pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Earlier this month, he landed the kind of payday that makes people stop and recheck the numbers: a four-year, $96 million extension with the Falcons, including $60 million guaranteed. The deal ties him for the highest average annual salary of any guard in the NFL and makes him the highest-paid Canadian NFL player ever.
For Syracuse, it’s also a landmark contract. It’s the largest deal for a former Orange football player since Donovan McNabb’s then-NFL record $115 million agreement with the Eagles in 2002.
“It’s incredible for us to see Matthew reach this level,” said Diego Ratelle, Bergeron’s coach at Canadian prep school Cégep de Thetford. “It’s beyond anything we could imagine, especially for a guy from a really small town like Victoriaville.”
The jump to the pros hasn’t changed the way Bergeron operates. He stepped into the starting lineup quickly at Syracuse and immediately became the kind of blocker who creates space for runners.
Sean Tucker’s record-setting 2021 season, when he broke Syracuse’s single-season rushing mark and led the ACC in rushing yards, came with Bergeron paving the way. Last season, Bijan Robinson benefited in Atlanta, where no team’s running backs gained more yards or more first downs rushing to the left side of their offensive line than Bergeron’s Falcons.
People who have known him for years say the size of the contract may have been shocking, but not the player it rewarded. He has been one of those rare athletes who seems to hit the ground running everywhere he goes.
His new average annual salary of $24 million puts him behind only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jamal Murray, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and R.J. Barrett among Canadian-born athletes.
Ratelle said he didn’t believe the extension at first when he saw the number.
“I saw $96 million,” said Damien Irep, Bergeron’s former teammate and roommate at Cégep de Thetford. “I was like, ‘You talking about the same guy I grew up with in Canada?’”
Bergeron’s path stands apart from Canada’s other biggest sports earners. Gilgeous-Alexander, Guerrero and Barrett all came with major expectations and prominent family ties.
Bergeron’s background was different. Raised by a single mother as the oldest of four children, he didn’t grow up around football at all.
His mother, Annie, signed him up after getting a pamphlet advertising activities for kids, she told syracuse.com in 2023.
Before making the drive to one of Dino Babers’ one-day summer camps at Syracuse in 2018, Bergeron had not seriously considered NCAA football. He was planning to play for Université Laval, one of the top college programs in Canada.
“We didn’t even think it was possible,” Annie said in 2023. “It was a dream.”
Those who watched him closely before Syracuse say the talent was obvious long before the national spotlight found him. At a winter practice introducing Bergeron to the Cégep de Thetford team, Irep watched a 16-year-old Bergeron overpower defensive linemen who were 19 and 20 and had already spent two or three years in the program.
Kevin Mackey, who coached Bergeron at Cégep de Thetford during his final semester, remembered how physically overwhelming he could be. He would group the 6-foot-5, 275-pound lineman with receivers in running drills.
“If he catches you, he can hurt you,” Mackey said. “So it gave him motivation to try and catch the receivers, and the receivers were scared, so they ran faster. It was a win-win kind of deal.”
Mackey also remembers what it was like holding bags for Bergeron in offensive line drills. Bergeron hit them so hard, Mackey said, that he had to hide the pain.
Syracuse coaches had a similar reaction when Bergeron showed up for that camp in 2018. Former Orange offensive line coach Mike Cavanaugh said Bergeron’s movement and physical edge jumped off the field right away.
“We were like, ‘We’re offering this guy. Holy moly,’” Cavanaugh said.
Once he got to Syracuse, Bergeron adapted quickly. He improved his English fast - French is his first language - and learned the position well enough to earn a starting job by late October. He became the first true freshman to start at offensive tackle for the Orange in almost 20 years.
The production has never really stopped. Since then, Bergeron has started 88 of a possible 90 games for Syracuse and Atlanta, missing only two this past season because of an ankle injury.
The Falcons did not make Bergeron available for an interview.
Even with his life centered in Atlanta now, Bergeron keeps coming back to Victoriaville three or four times a year. Ratelle said he talks with young players, explains how he works and offers advice to kids who are in the same position he was in not that long ago.
“Matthew is like a superstar now,” Ratelle said. “Really, really superstar because he’s cool, he’s a really grounded player.
When he talks he’s really, really calm. All the players want to talk or play or exchange with Matthew because his dream came true.”
He has also put money and effort back into the community. Bergeron funded a small scholarship for local athletes and helped launch an NFL Flag league in Victoriaville.
That league came together after Bergeron spoke with friends about the lack of flag football in town. He became the key link in a partnership with the NFL and helped provide the equipment needed to get it started, said Félix Turgeon, a former teammate who helps run the league.
Bergeron still shows up once or twice a year for the league’s tailgate party, where he signs jerseys and takes pictures with fans. The league is no longer partnered with the NFL, but Elevate Flag Football has grown into three divisions: boys, girls and mixed.
“He was able to come and attract a new crowd of kids coming in,” Mackey said. “Flag football has really taken off here, and I think he has a big part to do with it.”
So even if Bergeron is thousands of miles away in Atlanta, his presence in Victoriaville is everywhere. The jerseys say it best.
Said Turgeon: “Everybody here is repping 65 proudly.”
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