Richie Incognito(Left) Jonathan Martin(Right)
The news of Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin shocked the sports world earlier this week, Richie Incognito a starting lineman for the Miami Dolphin bullying his rookie team mate Jonathan Martin which forced him to leave the team.
In the starting of November rookie lineman Jonathan Martin left his team the Miami Dolphins to receive help for emotional issues. A week later rumours emerged that the reason of Martins leave was because of the players on the team bullying him. Richie Incognito a 8 year veteran lineman was to blame for Martins suddenly leaving the team. Martins agent released several voice-mails and text messages to the media which included racial slurs, threats to martin and his family from his former team mate Incognito. When evidence was shown to the NFL, Miami’s head coach was forced to suspend Incognito until further notice. I will not put up the transcript for the messages a simple Google search can help you find those.
Incognito has been “hazing” martin since he joined the team calling him nick names by twitter and he even made Martin pay $15,000 for a trip to Las Vegas which Martin did not even participate in. Now as this story has made its way to every news station and internet sport site few other rookies have come forward sharing their stories about how they are treated down in the Miami locker room. Earlier this year all of the Miami Dolphin players went out for dinner and made the rookies pick the up the tab of $30,000 and were told its a initiation to the team. Seeing the kind of respect these veteran players show their rookies is no wonder why the Miami Dolphins haven’t won a superbowl or even made it to the playoffs in recent years. Here is a link with further info on this http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/04/3729152/incognito-dolphins-push-back-against.html
Few players from other teams have commented on this situation, some believe Martin broke the code of silence and rookie hazing is something everyone has to go through. Most of the Miami locker room is taking Incognitos side and claiming Martin has blown this out of proportion that he should have just handled this privately. But other NFL players don’t see this as a surprise, former team mate Cam Cleeland of the St. Louis Rams talked about how Incognito was someone who had trouble getting along with other team members when playing for the Rams back in 2006 . Often involved in fights in practice, did not want to listen to others and came of as a very disrespectful person. The NFL is still investigating this matter until they make further decisions and Incognitos career could be in jeopardy.
Do you think Martin could have dealt with this situation differently or do you agree with him to bring this issue to the public eye?
Gridiron 
I think that it’s important that it was brought to the attention of the public. This kind of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated in schools, so it shouldn’t be tolerated just because they’re adults. If players are signed to a contract and are forced to stay when they are being verbally attacked day in and day out, that would be torture to anyone. No team will succeed without mutual respect among teammates. Also, if it kept getting swept under the rug, how far would Incognito go? It seems like it was progressively getting worse. He might start forcing them to do something illegal or something that would jeopardize their relationships/family life.
Blog was a real eye opener. I am shocked to hear how men are behaving like idiots. Richie Incognito is a scum bag and should be released from the league. It is a good thing that Jonathan Martin opened up to the public about this issue, it takes a lot of guts. A lot of teams have this ego (Bro code) not to put a team mate in a bad situation. In this case Jonathan Martin was right for what he did, no one should be pushed around like this.
What’s amazing to me, and sad, is that so many people are sticking up for Incognito’s behavior. It’s like they think it’s totally fine making racist statements, death threats, abusive threats against one’s family. That’s what gets me. Can’t even be civilized. And when anyone makes a remark about being nicer to each other, you go apeshit and act like that’s totally unacceptable.