Everybody has heard of the schoolyard bully. The kid who is usually a little bigger than everyone else and gives everyone a hard time.
Recently, the school yard bully has found his way into the Miami Dolphins’ facilities. Jonathan Martin, offensive tackle for the Miami Dolphins, left during a team lunch after an apparent prank by his teammates.
That small lunchroom prank however was indeed the straw that broke the camel’s back for Jonathan Martin.
Martin later started telling reporters and Dolphin officials that he was the victim of constant and malicious harassment from another player within the same locker room who goes by the name of Richie Incognito. Mr. Martin claims that this has been ongoing for quite a while now and he just could not take it anymore, and therefore he left.
The Miami Dolphins have suspended Incognito indefinitely without pay for a maximum of four weeks after Martin turned over evidence of a nasty voicemail from Incognito that included multiple threats, racial slurs and jokes about Jonathan’s physical appearance. The NFL in the meantime has launched a full investigation in to this very unique saga taking place in Miami.
Martin has reportedly never spoken to any Miami Dolphins personnel about these repeated acts of bullying from Richie Incognito or any other players. Martin has been a solid and consistent starter since coming out of the draft. He anchored Jim Harbuaugh’s offensive line at Stanford that featured now NFL star Andrew Luck and has started every game at Tackle since beginning his rookie campaign in 2012.
Richie Incognito however is not a completely innocent man and has been subject to harassment type accusations in prior years. At a golf outing in 2012, Incognito reportedly was heavily intoxicated throughout the event and was accused of molesting a volunteer at the golf outing. She was an African American female who reported that Richie kept attempting and succeeded a few times in inappropriately touching her.
Dave Kowolski was one of Incognito’s former teammates from Nebraska said this to CBS News about Richie and his bullying habits: “Richie would always kind of take it to another level. The name-calling and some of the physical taunting and things of that nature were a pretty commonplace.”
As he was being swarmed by the media when this sad news story first broke, starting quarterback of the Miami Dolphins, Ryan Tannehill, told the Miami Herald, “Richie said, ‘Jonathan is like my little brother,’ I think that’s an accurate depiction: He messed with him, but was there to have his back whenever he needed him.”
Some reports of Dolphins’ coaches telling Incognito to toughen up Jonathan Martin after he missed a voluntary workout last spring have erupted, but none of which are confirmed. Richie Incognito has supported these claims of Miami Dolphins coaches giving him the orders to “toughen” Martin up.
Surprisingly most of the Dolphins sided with Incognito when asked about the situation in the locker room. Multiple players described as a betrayal on a veteran player by Martin, and that he did not handle it like a man in any way shape or form.
This story keeps going back and forth with who is right, what is true, who is the victim. So while we all can make assumptions and express our opinions on what we think really happened, the NFL has launched a full scale investigation into the matter, and it is only a matter of time before the truth reveals itself.
