When you look through the accolades of NFL active participants and recent alumni, the words present are not good ones. You see no recognition of "valedictorian" next to the names of guys like Stephan Ridley or Aquib Talib and you surely see no hours of voluntary community service accumulated by such men. No, the space available on these endless stacks of background checks is almost completely occupied by phrases and stories largely fixating around words like murder, DUI, domestic violence and general assault.
There is no doubt that the NFL is a league overwhelmed by the ghosts of its players pasts but at the same time there are still perfectly good people who join this league, leave their troubled pasts behind and move into a position where they are ready to be the role models their cities need. Players like Ray Lewis who shed the personality that led him to stab someone after the Super Bowl in 2002 are perfect examples of this. Guys like Aaron Hernandez or more recently Richie Incognito are not.
For those who have not already heard, Jonathan Martin was a second year, defensive tackle playing for the Miami Dolphins football team. Reports first surface surrounding Martin just days after the Patriots left town following their 27-17 win over the Dolphins in which Martin racked up several tackles and one hit on Tom Brady. At first glance the situation seemed bizarre: an NFL player randomly snapping and with absolutely no warning eluding to "emotional problems" when he checked into a hospital for therapeutic treatment. But the story did not really check out. You could tell by the words of those around him that it was no secret that something was wrong.
"I love Jon like a brother," Former Stanford teammate of Martin: Andrew Luck said. "We had a lot of fun -- a lot of good times -- together at Stanford." He then went on to discuss in more detail, the situation in Miami. "It's obviously an incredibly unfortunate situation. But out of respect for him and what's going on, I'd rather not talk about it."
There sure was a slight aura of secrecy coming from the Dolphins locker room and then suddenly we learned why. By November 2nd, just 3 days after Martin was reported as leaving the team a new name had been introduced and by then was suspected as being the reason for Martin's previously inaptly explained departure. That name was Richie Incognito who unlike Martin was an 8 year veteran of the NFL.
Almost 2 weeks after the fact we now know that what started as friendly rookie teasing, rapidly turned into flat out bullying of Jonathon Martin and now has Incognito in a heap of trouble. By November 4th Martin's camp had already accused the Dolphins organization of player misconduct and was threatening to sue. Yet in more shocking news, Richie Incognito had been suspended indefinitely and in the words of an unidentified Dolphins correspondent "better file his retirement papers [because he will never play again in Miami]". But for those who were following this case a chilling revelation was delivered. A transcript of a voice message delivered to Martin by Incognito was dug up by ESPN Sports Center.
"Hey, wassup, you half n----- piece of s---. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] s--- in your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. F--- you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you."
For some reason Incognito thought this was the way teammates treated each-other and frankly the flaws in his beliefs on teamwork were so flawed that he will be given no second chases.
The NFL is in trouble and it is guys like Incognito who are the reason why.
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Rookie hazing is a plague.
Is goes against nearly every teaching of how to treat teammates but for some reason it is accepted. There is nothing good that comes out of tying guys to goal posts and pouring Gatorade over their heads against their will and yet it happens in every locker room league wide. Even in New England.
No matter how bad it is, in most cases, hazing does not cause the kind of mental trauma that it did with Jonathon Martin but then again the situation with Martin went beyond hazing. In addition to the slur infested voice mail Incognito supposedly forced Martin into paying for a 4,000$ vacation he did not even attend. Martin was rumored to have been hit by Incognito in the clubhouse and was known to be constantly tormented via the same verbal attacks utilized in the voice recording.
There is a point where this hazing crosses a line and while from the outside it is obvious that should these allegations be on par with reality, Incognito absolutely deserves all the punishment he is handed, the most disgusting aspect of this all is the fact that since the first reports of bullying, Incoginto's teammates have been defending him.
"What's perceived is that Richie is this psychopath racist, and the reality is Richie was a pretty good teammate," tackle Tyson Clabo told news reporters. "I don't know why (Martin is) doing this. And the only person who knows why is Jonathan Martin."
On another note, Greg Dale a current Duke professor spoke of an incident regarding the scandal, within his classroom.
"I was teaching my class at Duke to a group of undergrads, and we were talking about this very thing in class," Dale says. "And the comments from several of the young men were, 'Well, he really needed to man up. He's a man, and you've got to handle that on your own. He shouldn't have walked away.' And that's the core of the problem right there."
Furthermore, Minnesota Vikings Linebacker Chad Greenway extended the saga by saying that in most cases, “stuff like this” is more like bonding rather than bullying.
"The reality is, as a guy coming in, you have to understand the environment you're in and take it with a grain of salt, be able to dish it out as well as take it and just become part of that group," he says. "I don't know the situation (in Miami), what went on. But it happens. It happens all over the place.”
"I think 'bullying' is strongly overused at every age in this country, starting at my 6-year-old. People are just rude. People are mean. I wouldn't call it bullying. I think it's just being ridiculous. But as a grown man, it's more of a brotherhood, ball-busting mentality than I think we're directly coming at somebody."
But there is another side to the NFL player opinions on the situation. As was stated earlier there are good people in the NFL. Redskins veteran: Londen Fletcher is one of them.
"Obviously, it shows racism, bigotry, to leave a voice mail like that," Fletcher says. "He probably said that to the guy's face. He was very bold. … That wasn't hazing. That was flat bullying. … That right there was beyond the scope of anything I've seen that guys have done to rookies."
London then went on to talk about an experience he had in a locker room where he stood up as a leader and literally pulled a bunch of teammates off of a rookie who had been taped to the locker room floor while being doused with the contents of bags of “Icy Hot”.
That is the kind of leadership that a team needs and in Miami that leadership simply is not there. While London Fletcher is running around yanking guys off rookies, QB Ryan Tannehill in Florida is one of the guys on top being pulled away. While Bill Belichick in New England is screaming at you and benching guys for high stepping into the end zone, Joe Philbin is turning a cold shoulder and backing away from Incognito rather than getting up in his face and telling him it is time to shape up.
The perceptions embodied by the quotes above are what is wrong with the NFL. Unlike the NHL, MLB and even the NBA, the violence that occurs on the field of an NFL game is often not constrained to that field. There have been upwards of 35 arrests of NFL players since the 2013 Super Bowl and while Rodger Godell tries his best to rule the league he presides over with an iron fist, in some cases discipline does close to nothing.
The NFL is the most popular league on the planet and it is now time to act like it, on and off the field.
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