Bullying is taking place in the NFL. I never thought I would say those words, but believe it or not, bullying is this week’s hot topic in sports. Dolphins offensive lineman Jonathan Martin recently left his team because of emotional stress as a result of bullying by teammate and fellow offensive lineman Richie Incognito. Now of course, the person at fault here is Mr. Incognito, but there’s more than just one person in South Beach to point a finger at.
Bullying and hazing isn’t anything new to the NFL, or even in the sports world in general. I’ve seen it on every sports team I’ve been on. The magnitude always varies — never severe in my experience — but it does happen.
But when I say I’ve seen hazing or bullying, I’m not referring to anything traumatic. These things include making the first-years carry the team tent or water bottles, or other similarly small and tedious tasks to let them know their place. It can definitely get a little worse than that, but I’m not going to sit here and make a confession. In most instances, minor “hazing” doesn’t have a negative impact on the victim.
Listening to ESPN radio yesterday, I heard many NFL players call in and tell the station what they had to do as rookies. The most common things were singing in front of a whole banquet dinner, carrying equipment and bringing breakfast for the team. Nothing wrong with that, right?
But Incognito took this hazing to a whole new level, including leaving threatening voicemails and constantly throwing racial slurs at Martin. Both those actions are obviously unacceptable in a team environment. The Miami Dolphins are right for suspending Incognito for the rest of the year, but it shouldn’t have come to this in the first place.
Incognito has had a bad reputation in the NFL and college, including being deemed the “NFL’s dirtiest player” in a Sporting News poll of 99 players. He has been in the top three of this poll multiple times, but his poor behavior dates back to his college days. Bar fights, in-game fights, bullying and other incidents led him to be kicked off teams at Nebraska and Oregon.
With such history, the Miami coaches should have sat down with Incognito and laid out the type of behavior they expected of him. Once he was deemed the dirtiest player in the NFL, the team should have created some sort of consequence. But that didn’t happen. It’s fair to point fingers at the Dolphins coach and whole organization for this whole situation as well as Incognito.
But the teammates are to blame as well. How do these guys let something like this happen? There seems to be no leadership in this locker room, or even any savvy veteran. As London Fletcher of the Washington Redskins said, “Who was the leader on that team that I know Jonathan Martin didn’t feel comfortable enough to go to any of those guys?”
On any sort of team, there needs to be a leader who steps in when things get out of hand. I know for a fact that on the track and field team at the University nothing like this would ever come close to happening. Though hazing or bullying may be fun for a bit, if it ever were to get out of hand, there are leaders on the team that would completely shut it down. It’s astonishing to me that the team let this go on for so long.
Lastly, as bad as it sounds, Jonathan Martin, the victim, is also partially to blame. I’m not saying this to any blame away from Incognito — what he did is without a doubt wrong and he deserves to be punished. But I just find it a bit odd that a grown man in the NFL let this type of bullying happen to him.
If someone ever crosses the line, if you’re in the NFL you need to do something about it. This isn’t high school where the big jock throws you around. In this case, you are the big jock. From what is being reported, Martin didn’t even tell the coach what was going on. He just left the team and contacted the media. Also not a good move.
All in all, this whole situation is a disaster. The main culprit is Incognito and there is no way around that. The Miami Dolphins are also at fault for not stepping in. I’ve been on many sports teams myself and can proudly say that each one had a support system that would have prevented this situation from happening. Lastly, Martin didn’t handle the situation properly either. Yes he is the victim, and I do have sympathy for him, but I don’t think he did much to prevent the issue from escalating.
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