Jonathan Martin has been out of the spotlight since his issues with fellow Miami Dolphins lineman Richie Incognito came to light and now he is making his first public comments in an interview with Tony Dungy for NBC and in that interview he said he felt trapped by the persistent bullying from Incognito and that likely means both players will not be on the team anymore.
According to ESPN.com, the interview will air this week and it likely is against the wishes of the NFL, who would rather have only positive PR during Super Bowl week. The lineman told Dungy that he felt trapped in the situation due to the persistent nature of the attacks and he also said that he wants to play in the NFL again. Ted Wells was brought in by the league to do interviews and a review and he will have his report released after the Super Bowl most likely.
Some quotes from the interview:
"I felt trapped, like I didn't have a way to make it right. I thought it was best to remove myself from the situation. I'm a grown man. I've been in locker rooms," Martin told Dungy. "One incident doesn't bother me. It was the persistence.
"There are other people that got it too," Martin said. "I can't say why I may have gotten more."
Here is a look back on the Dolphins situation from the season and there has been a previous pattern with Incognito harassing Martin, including on other players and on social media on Twitter and Instagram. The Miami Dolphins bullying situation and the reaction to Richie Incognito's behavior is abhorrent and it is not an isolated incident and any player that says it is hasn't looked at the history of this lineman, as bullying and abusive tactics go back to his early days in the NFL and in college and he also repeatedly harassed Jonathan Martin on social media.
Incognito went to school at Nebraska and had a number of issues with fights and other problems and he was eventually suspended there and then after going to Oregon he was asked to leave the team after just a week. This all leads into the NFL, where he had repeated incidents with officials, other teammates and opponents while playing with the Rams and the Bills and his former coaches with the Rams came out to say that they are not surprised by his behavior when they found out what was happening to Martin.
USA Today detailed an incident back in 2002 when Incognito bullied Jack Limbaugh, another player on Nebraska that forced the player to eventually walk out of the team facility and he was previously voted as the dirtiest player in the NFL. The Rams released him and every professional and college team he has played on has either cut, released or suspended him. Now he is the poster boy for everything great about the Miami Dolphins, who are defending him over Martin.
Check here for a full look of the Twitter history between Martin and Incognito, which was put together by SI.com and includes more harassment, including calling Martin Big Weirdo and also taking and posting pictures that make fun of him. Apart from calling him a half n----r and also threatening to kill him, he also wrote numerous things online and posted a picture about how he hates rookies. He also repeatedly drew attention to Martin in a derogatory way.
Either way, this story only seems to get worse and worse for the Dolphins.
