Keeping It Right

Keeping It Right is for thought provoking conversationist. It's for those who love to talk about today's issues, yesterday's history and tomorrow's future.

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Location: Texas, United States

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

RF23 - Perception Is The Key

During the 2013 NFL season a story broke across the nation that a NFL player left his team because he could not take....

Bullying.

That's right, bullying.   According to reports Miami Dolphin Offensive Lineman Jonathan Martin quit the team because he was being bullied by another offensive lineman, Ritchie Incognito.   The news stories took off  like a wildfire with the media almost crying over Martin.  They were looking to make him the national face of the man who would be bullied that he walked away from his NFL contract because there was no one to.

Fight his battle.   That's right, no one stepped up to fight Martin's battle.  So the end result is Martin leaving, Incognito suspended and a coach buying boxes from U-Haul in preparation of being fired for this story.

I may be a little old school, but I remember the days, when a kid was bullied, they either fought back or it persisted.  If they were lucky, they'll have a friend to step to the bully and let the bully know that the person is their friend and if he/she messes with them, well you know.  But not today, today, we are bombarded by radio and TV ads.  We're hearing stories of kids actually committing suicide! because they didn't stand up for themselves or no one fought their battle.  Is it sad?  absolutely.  No one, including me wants to see parents bury a child because of bullying.  However, Jonathan Martin is no child! according to reports he gave as good as he got and when the kitchen got just little hotter. 

He quit.  he quit on his teammates and he quit on his offensive line brothers who are in the trenches.   I never played a down of NCAA or NFL football, but I do know that the fraternity and brotherhood amongst that group is close knit.  "All for one and one for all" if that was the creed.   In my opinion, Martin was for one, him.   The issue of Martin also resulted in finger pointing and accusations towards other teammates such as Mike Pouncey.  Pouncey defended Incognito and was immediately lambasted by black journalists, this is the same Pouncey, who wore a "Free Aaron Hernandez" T-shirt, Hernandez played for the New England Patriots and now sits in jail accused of murder.  Now what does that say about Martin? when a teammate would rather support another player on a different team! accused of murder! than Martin.   It says alot and Pouncey wasn't by himself, out of the 53 men on the Dolphins' roster the majority of them supported Incognito, why? because the locker room knows what going on and some of the players even said so, Mike Wallace said that if Martin was having that much of an issue with Incognito, he should have handled it and we're all grown here, we know what he meant!

Martin chose not to.

Tonight, NBC will air Tony Dungy interviewing Martin and one of the quotes from Martin was that he didn't have tools to handle the situation.

You right about that Jonathan. 

A pair.