Richie Incognito went from regular NFL offensive lineman to the face of locker room bullying thanks to Jonathan Martin's allegations following his leave of absence. The other revelations about Incognito hasn't been flattering either. The public found out that he had meetings with his fellow linemen in strip clubs, his use of the N-word in public outings, and how he allegedly molested a female volunteer during a May 2012 team charity golf tournament.
Incognito is still entitled to defend himself, and he got the opportunity to do so when he sat down with FOX Sports' Jay Glazer before NFL Sunday kicked off. He noted multiple times during the interview that he'll never be completely off the hook for his role in the scandal, especially after the voicemail ("Going to slap your real mother across the face. Laughter. You’re still a rookie. I’ll kill you.") The lineman does make some interesting points about his teammate/"friend." Here are the Most Shocking Claims From Richie Incognito's Interview:
- Martin also took part in the vulgar communication within the locker room. Incognito says Martin texted him, "I will murder your whole F—ing family." Incognito didn't take the facetious threat too seriously though. "Now did I think Jonathan Martin was going to murder my family? Not one bit,” he said.
- The crazy comments isn't a form of bullying, according to Incognito. One Dolphin teammate allegedly said, “We are going to run train on your sister. . . . She loves me. I am going to f–k her without a condom and c– in her c—.” Although he didn't refer to that claim and instead addressed the infamous voicemail, Incognito maintained that this is simply how the Dolphins locker room communicates. "But what I want people to know is, the way Jonathan and the rest of the offensive line and how our teammates how we communicate, it’s vulgar. It’s, it’s not right," Incognito said. "When the words are put in the context, I understand why a lot of eyebrows get raised, but people don’t know how Jon and I communicate to one another."
- Incognito defended against claims that he was racist. The N-Word just gets used a lot in the locker room: "It’s thrown around a lot. It’s a word that I’ve heard Jon use a lot. Not saying it’s right for when I did it in the voicemail, but there’s a lot of colorful words thrown around the locker room that we don’t use in everyday life."
- Martin actually appeared like he was in good spirits days before he left the team. He texted Incognito saying, "Wassup man? The world's gone crazy lol I'm good tho congrats on the win" and "Yeah I'm good man. It's insane bro but just know I don't blame you guys at all it's just the culture around football and the locker room got to me a little." Martin took a pretty different tone in his released statement.
- Incognito's claims about their texts aren't without proof either. He shared the text transcripts with Glazer, who noted that Incognito and Martin shared 1,142 texts in the past year.
- As bad as "F--- you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you" sounds, Incognito still says the messages were coming out of love for his friend. "I can’t sit here and tell you who overreacted, who did what; I can just sit here and be accountable for my actions. And my actions were coming from a place of love."
- Despite the huge hit his public image has taken, Incognito is still willing to talk it out with Martin: "I think, honestly, I think I’d give him a big hug right now because we’ve been through so much and I’d be like, dude what’s going on? Why didn’t you come to me? If he were to say listen, you took it way to far, you hurt me. You know I would just apologize and explain to him exactly what I just explained to you, and I’d apologize to his family, they took it as malicious. I never meant it that way."
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[via FOX Sports]
