The Jonathan Martin Bullying story involving Richie Incognito has now taken over the conversation among NFL circles after the stories came to light and that's a good things, but some players have seemingly taken the wrong attitude towards the situation and one of those players is New York Giants safety Antrel Rolle, who said on a radio interview that he thinks Martin deserves as much blame as Incognito.
Rolle explained that he felt Incognito was wrong, okay, good sign, but then he goes on to say that Martin is as much to blame for "allowing" the bullying to happen. Okay Antrel, I sort of see your point, but this type of attitude is exactly the wrong tactic to take here and shows why this issue at its core happened in the first place.
Jonathan Martin went to Stanford and started all but two games during his time there and clearly is a good enough football player to start every game with the Dolphins since being a second round pick. So just because he didn't stand up to Incognito all of a sudden it's his fault? Rookie hazing is what it is, but who says that football players need to be tough as nails? Yes, there is a factor of toughness involved and while Martin may not have had it as openly as other players, clearly he was good enough to last this whole time, so he should have to endure racists and homophobic slandering to his face just because...? Oh yeah Antrel I'm waiting for an actual reason why this should occur.
Just because Martin is "different" and is not as emotionally stable as some other players automatically makes him an "other" and it's his fault? No, no no, it's players with that attitude like Rolle's that are the problem. There is a line between hazing and hate speech and there is no doubt that Incognito crossed it.
Rolle is usually a smart and well-spoken player and while he can be a bit outspoken as well, it usually isn't something like this. Yes, he said Incognito was wrong, but you know what, so are you. Here is a look at what the lineman said to Martin and you tell me what's right about this:
"Hey, wassup, you half n----- piece of s---. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] s--- in your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. F--- you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you."
