Here’s what we know about the situation currently roiling the Miami Dolphins and the National Football League.
Jonathan Martin, a second-year offensive lineman, left the Dolphins to deal with an issue which apparently came to a head after several teammates all got up from his table at a team meal.
Richie Incognito, a veteran offensive lineman, left a voicemail which included a racial slur, threats to Martin’s family, and threats to defecate into Martin’s mouth. Another teammate — or Incognito (it’s not clear) — left at least one message saying he would “run a train” on Martin’s sister.
Here’s what we don’t know for certain, but only know based on leaks.
— Dolphins coaches told Incognito to toughen up Martin.
— Certain Dolphins thought Incognito was “blacker” than Martin and appeared to like Incognito more.
— Jeff Ireland, the Dolphins general manager, told Martin’s agent that Martin should punch Incognito. Apparently, he’s not alone.
— Ryan Tannehill, the Dolphins quarterback, said he thought Martin would consider Incognito a great friend.
— Brian Hartline, a Dolphins wide receiver, said Martin played the voicemail and laughed about it.
— Lydon Murtha, a former Dolphins offensive lineman, said that Martin was taken under Incognito’s wing and that the “extortion” of $15,000 was Martin trying to bail out of paying money fronted beforehand for a Las Vegas trip.
— Martin appears to have voted for Incognito for the Dolphins leadership council.
It seems impossible for all of the leaks to have been accurate. The last four especially seem to contradict Martin’s claim. But it’s quite possible for all of these statements to be at least partially true. In fact, I’d go so far as to say most of the leaks have a degree of truth to them — though the Murtha piece is by far the most dubious for reasons that are laid out by Pro Football Talk.
If you don’t understand how these leaks could all be true, I encourage you to read Drew Magary’s accounts of his bullying at Deadspin. Then go back and look at what Martin’s high school coach said about him:
“He always wanted to make everybody happy and make friends and not be a problem,” Eumont said. “All of his teachers loved him. All of his teammates loved him. His nickname was Moose and he was happy to have that. He was always ‘yes or no sir,’ do whatever you ask him to do. I can see where somebody that’s a bully will take advantage of him, and rather than him say anything would just hold it inside. “I can see where if somebody was bullying him he would take that to heart, and be concerned and think it was his fault.”
It’s easy to see how this could have happened. Martin, by the accounts of pretty much all of his Stanford teammates (and even the Dolphins who are trashing him) is an introverted guy. The coaching staff of the Dolphins thought Martin lacked the “right” mentality, so they sicced Incognito on him. Incognito went full-bore, berating him, never really considering that his actions would be more detrimental than motivational. The rest of the offensive line had no problem with him doing this — or, if they did, they didn’t feel comfortable saying anything.
As Incognito kept layering on the insults, Martin, wanting to be accepted, went along with it. He may have even played the voicemails for others, hoping someone would pipe up, “That’s not cool, Richie.” But when they didn’t, he tried to fit in and laugh. The anxiety built for months, but he kept trying to fit in. He even tried to show he wasn’t bothered by voting for Incognito to be on the leadership council and making it known that that he had.
But it didn’t work.
Eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore and a final prank set him off. Martin left the team, filed a complaint, and here we are.
Ultimately, the Murtha piece illustrates the core issue at play. As PFT pointed out, Murtha was almost certainly repeating someone else’s talking points, simply because he was only around Incognito and Martin for about four months in 2012. The things being talked about happened months after Murtha’s release, making it impossible for him to have seen them firsthand.
Murtha’s piece boils down to a justification of juvenile antics. In his defense of Incognito he, more or less, explains how Martin could have reasonably decided he had to leave for his own safety. It’s in the text (all emphases below mine):
Which brings me to my first point: I don’t believe Richie Incognito bullied Jonathan Martin. I never saw Martin singled out, excluded from anything, or treated any differently than the rest of us. We’d have dinners and the occasional night out, and everyone was invited. He was never told he can’t be a part of this. It was the exact opposite. But when he came out, he was very standoffish. That’s why the coaches told the leaders, bring him out of his shell. Figure him out a little bit.
Set aside that Murtha is again talking about less than a half a year of experience with Martin, he confirmed the Dolphins coaches told the leaders to get on Martin’s case. He tried to downplay it, make it seem like a good-natured suggestion, but even if you are inclined to believe in Incognito’s good intentions, Murtha also confirmed that the coaches erred in telling Incognito to deal with Martin. Look at Murtha’s next paragraph:
That’s where Incognito ran into a problem. Personally, I know when a guy can’t handle razzing. You can tell that some guys just aren’t built for it. Incognito doesn’t have that filter. He was the jokester on the team, and he joked with everybody from players to coaches. That voicemail he sent came from a place of humor, but where he really screwed up was using the N-word. That, I cannot condone, and it’s probably the biggest reason he’s not with the team right now. Odd thing is, I’ve heard Incognito call Martin the same thing to his face in meetings and all Martin did was laugh. Many more worse things were said about others in the room from all different parties. It’s an Animal House. Now Incognito’s being slandered as a racist and a bigot, and unfortunately that’s never going to be wiped clean because of all the wrong he’s done people in his past. But if you really know who Richie is, he’s a really good, kind man and far from a racist.
Martin couldn’t handle it and Incognito didn’t have the ability to let up. That’s a euphemistic way of saying Martin was being made miserable on the directives of out-of-touch coaches. Worse, Murtha repeated the “he laughed at being called a nigger” charge. He could have saved everyone time by simply writing, “Saying nigger is really wrong, but you don’t understand, everyone was okay with it!” (In fairness to Murtha, Hartline, who looks pretty white to me, said the same thing). In Murtha’s view, Martin’s reaction can’t be explained as trying to fit in and make the harassment go away.
There’s also this little gem:
The silliest part of this story, to me, is the incident at the cafeteria, in which Martin was supposed to have been hazed when everyone got up from their seats as he sat down. Whoever leaked that story failed to share that getting up from a packed lunch table when one lineman sits down is a running gag that has been around for years. It happened to me more than once, and it happened to Martin because guys on the team say he was overcoming an illness. Just like when a guy is hurt, the joke is, I don’t want to sit with you, you’ve got the bug. Perhaps for Martin it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but when Incognito reached him after he stormed out, Martin told him the departure had nothing to do with Incognito. Martin said it was something else. Then the media onslaught began.
This paragraph is why, despite my distrust of Mike Florio, I agree with him that Murtha is parroting a talking point. There is no way he could have known about this incident with any level of confidence without talking to a Dolphins player. It’s also why Sports Illustrated should be ashamed of itself for actually attempting to portray this as an unbiased testimonial. Not only has Murtha given a blow-by-blow account of something that happened when he wasn’t there, but he’s given a supposed insider’s account of Martin and Incognito’s relationship, even though he hasn’t been around for months, and even though he explicitly admitted he doesn’t talk to Martin regularly.
Here’s more Murtha derp-itude:
Incognito was made a scapegoat for the hell coming down on the Dolphins organization, which in turn said it knew nothing about any so-called hazing. That’s the most outlandish lie of this whole thing. The coaches know everything. The coaches know who’s getting picked on and in many cases call for that player to be singled out. Any type of denial on that side is ridiculous. I have friends on more than a dozen teams, and it’s the same everywhere. What people want to call bullying is something that is never going away from football. This is a game of high testosterone, with men hammering their bodies on a daily basis. You are taught to be an aggressive person, and you typically do not make it to the NFL if you are a passive person. There are a few, but it’s very hard. Playing football is a man’s job, and if there’s any weak link, it gets weeded out. It’s the leaders’ job on the team to take care of it.
And now the fun really begins. This passage is a key piece of evidence pointing to Incognito as Murtha’s source, because the coaches are thrown under the bus. But again that interests me less than the bottom of the paragraph. That’s where Murtha confirmed and attempted to justify Martin’s bullying.
The most unfortunate thing about this situation is the consequence it will have on the careers of both men. Richie’s marked himself now as a racist and a bigot, and unfortunately that could be the end of it. Martin is on the opposite end of the spectrum, but no more likely than Incognito to return to the NFL if he wants. In going to the media with his problem, Martin broke the code, and it shows that he’s not there for his teammates and he’s not standing up for himself. There might be a team that gives him a chance because he’s a good person, but the players will reject him. They’ll think, If I say one thing he’s going to the press. He’ll never earn the respect of teammates and personnel in the NFL because he didn’t take care of business the right way.
What fans should understand is that every day in the NFL there are battles between players worse than what’s being portrayed. This racial slur would be a blip on the radar if everything that happens in the locker room went public. But all over the league, problems are hashed out in house. Either you talk about it or you get physical. But at the end of the day, you handle it indoors.
There it is. Despite the fact an NFL locker room is a mess of intolerance, slurs, and a host of horrors you can’t possibly comprehend for your own sanity, in Murtha’s view, Martin committed a major sin by going to the press (he didn’t — the press dug it up after seeing that Martin had left) and airing the dirty laundry. However, that logic only goes so far, even on its own terms. For example, I’d love to know why it’s okay for Incognito to file a grievance against the Dolphins when he could have just punched Ireland in the face and avoided the risk of the press finding out.
Murtha painted a picture of a guy who couldn’t handle the heat and abuse co-workers launched his way out of a desire to toughen him up “or bring him out of his shell.” And when he couldn’t handle it, he responded by breaking a sacred code. Ignore that this code provides cover for an environment so offensive that racial slurs and threats of defecation and violence against people not in the locker room would be considered small-time. Ignore that one person who was in a locker room like that last season is alleged to have committed a murder. Ignore that one person who was in a locker room like that did murder his girlfriend and child and then committed suicide in the team parking lot.
Imagine trying that logic in any other workplace. “You just don’t understand — you’re not a doctor. If you were, you’d understand why federal laws need not apply here.”
Make no mistake, Jonathan Martin was bullied and put in a terrible, possibly illegal, work environment. And the bullying continues. Will it end with a forced recanting or will heads roll?
I suspect there will be a settlement, and the Dolphins and Incognito will give some half-hearted apology alongside Martin, who will add that the differences were cleared up and he’s ready to move on. Neither Martin nor Incognito will play for the Dolphins again. I suspect they’ll both be out of the league for good within two years.
No matter what the Dolphins want to say, Richie Incognito has a terrible track record. He’s was kicked out of two colleges, left negative impressions at multiple NFL stops, has used racial slurs more than once and, sadly more importantly, he’s on the wrong side of 30 and on the decline. He’s simply not worth the headache, not when new information about his sterling character keeps emerging.
There are a good number of players who won’t want Martin around either. His teammates certainly seem like they don’t. It’s possible his old coach, the 49ers’ Jim Harbaugh, who openly says he supports Martin, will give him a chance. But Martin hasn’t been a great pro either, so if he doesn’t turn it around quickly, when he does play again, his leash will be short.
Hopefully, something else happens. Hopefully, the stench of this case forces the NFL to change. That it doesn’t just become the choice of a coach like the Seahawks’ Pete Carroll, or the Bears’ Marc Trestman, or the Eagles’ Chip Kelly, that the NFL, as a league, starts punishing teams that allow this culture to continue. That will happen eventually. In the technological age we live in, you can’t bury this stuff forever.
It would just be nice if the change started sooner, rather than later.
Ben Valentine was born on Valentine’s Day. Really.
(Image cc-licensed: "MIA_vs_OAK_008" by June Rivera)
