Life imitates The Sopranos?
It was only a matter of time before old school jock hazing turned into a major NFL bullying scandal. It’s happening on the Miami Dolphins and has led to offensive lineman Richie Incognitobeing suspended for harassing young Jonathan Martin. Yes, Martin is over 300 pounds but who wouldn’t be fearful of a message like this:
“Hey, wassup, you half n—– piece of shit. I saw you on Twitter, you
been training 10 weeks. [I want to] shit in your fucking mouth. [I’m
going to] slap your fucking mouth. [I’m going to] slap your real mother
across the face [laughter]. Fuck you, you’re still a rookie. I’ll kill
you.”
Nice. Incognito was voted the NFL’s dirtiest player in 2009 by his peers. I wonder if he was rewarded with Klan robes and crosses suitable for burning rookies’ lawns.
Incognito is from Jersey, which is one reason this incident reminds me of a plot line from Season 3 of The Sopranos. After Christopher Moltisanti becomes a made man, he discovers that life is not all canolis and moozadell for wise guys. He is expected to pick up enormous restaurant checks, allow himself to be strip searched, and even watch as Paulie Walnuts sniffs Adriana’s knickers. I’m not sure if Incognito ever did the latter, but part of the Martin story is how he, and other rookies, are obliged to subsidize the veterans’ extravagant liefstyles and be generally subservient until they can repeat the same stupid cycle themselves.
The Dolphins and the NFL tried to blow Martin’s allegations off at first. It’s unmanly to complain about hazing, but it can become lethal if not nipped in the bud. It’s also not a good thing when internet smart asses like me compare what’s going on in the NFL to The Sopranos. It’s time to (Johnny) sack hazing in pro football.
SMH at the number of people (including MIke “I’m Wrong About Everything” Ditka) who’ve said Jonathan Martin should’ve popped Incognito one and that would have ended the abuse.
Really? An NFL player punching out a teammate — a teammate around whom the rest of the team is already circling the wagons?
Martin would have been seen aa an uncontrollably angry black man, been fired, and possibly faced jail time. It would have ended his career.
I agree with the man on Twitter who said (paraphrasing) “Incognito is lucky that Martin wasn’t involved in that life or it would have been a lot worse.”
What an abhorrent piece of shit Incognito is. Unfortunately, if he can still win football games, he’ll be back with another team next season; bank on it.
So that’s the guy’s REAL name? Oy. I read the Slate piece and it just gives me another reason to detest football and particularly the NFL. They allow the older players to haze the younger players? WTF? Aren’t they supposed to be adults? I can’t say I am surprised at the tolerance of Incognito–look at Ben Roethlesberger (sp?) getting continual passes–and he isn’t really that good anymore.
Time to boycott professional football, which apparently is just a LOT of men behaving very, very badly.
Incognito’s old. He’s gonna lose a step, this season or next. Miami say they’re done with his shiny white bigotry and stupidity.
Don’t blame the NFL for this.
Martin didn’t need to bust Incognito in the mouth — the whole Dolphins coaching staff and everybody else on the team needed to throw a blanket party for the dirtbag, old-school style.
Walt Garrison used to spit lighter fluid over lit matches to scare rookies into not trying to mess with him; in the off-season, he was an actual rodeo cowboy. Now we’ve got jagoffs like Incognito thinking they’re so shit-hot they can get away with this kind of jerkoffery????
Tom Landry would’ve sent that POS to the street before the second voicemail.
i guess easier than just retiring.
It may just be more transparent in a football team.
But in so many subtle ways, the “normal” office politics seem to have characteristics of a pack of rabid wolves also.