Somehow, I suspect that when next year’s Hard Knocks goes to air, there won’t be a funny, ha-ha clip of an innocent rookie being taped to his locker.
And what of the annual rookie ritual of getting up in front of the entire team to sing the old college fight song? Perhaps that stays in, but you can be sure there also will be footage of the head coach telling the players that he expects a certain code of conduct in the locker room. In other words, no Richie Incognitos.
There was plenty of reaction to the story yesterday. As you would expect, Keith Olbermann came down hard on Incognito.
The discussion on NFL Monday QB on CBS Sports Network was extremely telling. It confirms my suspicions that there have been many Richie Incognitos through the years.
Read what Rich Gannon had to say:
I have absolutely no tolerance for this type of behavior. I’ve seen firsthand how this can divide and really destroy a locker room, a team and quite frankly, an entire organization… Early in my career at Minnesota, I remember the older players, there was a culture that existed where they were worried about their jobs. They didn’t reach out and help younger players. I also went to places like Kansas City where Marty Schottenheimer created a culture and environment where none of this existed. Older players reached out to younger players and welcomed them to the organization and were very supportive.
Then I went to an organization in Oakland, which quite frankly made me sick. This culture and environment existed out there with older players bullying younger players. At one point, I remember coming into the locker room my very first year there, and I saw a group of defensive lineman had our young tight end tied up with tape. They were punching him. They were putting icy-hot and baby powder with water on this guy. They were trying to demoralize the player.
I freaked out. I said, ‘I need this guy on Sunday.’ I really thought that I helped to change the culture and the environment in that building… If this exists in your locker room, you have no chance of being successful. Unfortunately, it still exists in certain locker rooms.
Phil Simms: You have to have a pulse on your football team. (When I played for the Giants), I’m not going to say our atmosphere was the best in the NFL. But our head coach Bill Parcells, he had guys in the locker room – that was kind of their job. To watch and see what was going on and if there was a problem, to let him know. They weren’t snitches. We know who those guys were on the football team. In fact, we looked up to them because we knew their job was really important for the whole culture of the team. So when you hear what went on with the Dolphins, I just can’t believe other players and coaches and people didn’t do something about it. You have to put the blame, no matter what comes out of this, on everybody. It’s a rough situation.
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Meanwhile, ESPN’s Tom Jackson didn’t mince words about Incognito.
I think Richie Incognito is a racist. I think he bigoted. I think he’s a bully. I think it’s wrapped all into one package. I don’t want people to be under the perception that conduct in an NFL locker room, that somehow we are not aware of what is . . . OK and not OK. I’ve heard a lot of that today, well the locker room is a place where people are very different. They’re not this different.
Jeff Ireland was on with Russo today defending (I thought) Incognito, repeating the idiotic “Martin should have just punched him in the mouth” nonsense and insisting that management knew nothing about this situation.