Jonathan Martin Has A Great Time At Stanford Game
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins players were getting ready for their Sunday showdown with San Diego. Richie Incognito was sitting at home wondering if and when he will get back on the field. Ted Wells the appointed investigator in all this mess was sifting through seven hours of taped material from his Jonathan Martin interview. Jonathan Martin? He was attending the Stanford game on Saturday wearing a big smile for someone who is supposedly stressed and under medical care.
At one point after the sessions with Wells ended a report surfaced that Martin was on his way back to the hospital for more care. That apparently included a stop at the game. Maybe this was part of his treatment…as opposed to going to see , I don’t know. Rudy. Radio. You know, movies about guys being degraded who stick it out and win in the end. Maybe the “win” in the end will be more for his attorney and his mothers peace of mind.
Sorry, I’m simply not a fan of Jonathan Martin’s attitude in all of this. Not because he was bullied and may or may not have acted like a wimp but because of the way he handled his business. His immediate action was to leave the team, o.k. I understand that completely especially if he had in fact taken his problems to the management or the coaches. It’s his next step. His next step should have been to contact the NFLPA. That is what they are there for. Then having failed at that to resolve the issue council would have been the next option.
What we got instead was a direct run to the attorney. From there the issues that Martin had become a one-sided indictment on his co-workers, his managers, and the entire Miami Dolphins franchise. Martin played this out publicly through his attorney. He begged his problems to be tried in the court of public opinion. It worked. Immediately favor was gained as Richie Incognito was bled of any remaining image he had left. Suddenly Incognito’s former opponents were right. He was a dirty player, a bigot, a locker room cancer. He was a drunkard who embarrassed the franchise and himself. It cost him his job and possibly put a final nail into his career.
Despite the fact that Incognito screamed his innocence, the Martin camp held fast. When Incognito threw out responses from Martin as something the two of them “did as friends” Martin’s camp quickly denied or widened the scope to involve other “non-named players”. So far nothing from Martin has actually been made public. He denies releasing the audio from the voice mail. Or at least he is rumored to have denied it.
Today, the Miami Dolphins are supposed to be prepping for an important game against the Carolina Panthers next Sunday. Instead they will be at the beck an call of Ted Wells as he tours the training facility searching for answers to an issue that may or may not actually exist. An accusation that has rattled a team and has put coaches and players alike on notice that their jobs with Miami may be coming to a close.
Yet while all this goes on a young man is supposed to be fighting inner demons that allegedly have surfaced over the course of 18 months. In reality it’s only during the months they are actually at the team facility. Just over a year. The hazing, bullying, whatever it is was enough to drive him into treatment. Enough to make him walk away. Apparently not enough to keep him from walking the sideline at his alma mater with a big smile on his face.
And to that I ask, what the hell is so damn funny?