Via the Sun Sentinal: Miami Dolphins coaches asked player Richie Incognito, who was the offensive line‘s undisputed leader, to toughen up teammate Jonathan Martin after he missed a voluntary workout last spring, multiple sources told the Sun Sentinel.
The sources told the paper they believe that Incognito, who is accused of using racially incendiary language and bullying tactics against Martin, may have taken those orders too far.
It’s not clear whether those marching orders will now become part of a pending investigation by the NFL into the Dolphins’ locker room culture, and the alleged bullying that took place between Incognito and Martin.
This was the big news yesterday regarding the bullying going on down in Miami. If this is the case, this is terrible news for the Miami Dolphins and everyone involved, but I’m not surprised by this at all. I don’t doubt that some line coach or quality assurance guy told Incognito to “toughen up” the young guy who skipped voluntary work outs. Did Incognito go too far, absolutely. Will this be a terrible blow to the Dolphins and in some weird way, the NFL? Probably. This is the kind of stuff you know happens in the dark corners of locker rooms in professional sports that no one ever talks about. Some coach, far down the line, telling one of his veteran players to get into the younger players to ensure maximum effort. These NFL teams are paying players a shit ton of money and the last thing they want is some high draft pick not giving their all on every play. They expect these players to live, eat and sleep football and the minute they think that a player isn’t doing that, they’re going to try to ruffle some feathers.
This is not a real surprise by any means. This is the outing of something that has been going on forever. This is the age of social media and instant news and access, where nothing is secret anymore. Expect this kind of thing to continue to happen.
In the end, it’s bad news bears for all parties and there will be coaches fired and/ or suspended, the NFL will take action, Incognito is already suspended indefinitely and we don’t even know where Jonathan Martin is. Bad news.