Ted Wells Report on Incognito / Martin released

Want to know the difference between Lang and Martin? Rodgers is an excellent leader and Green Bay is a first class organization, and if Rodgers sees that **** going on he will end their football careers in the same way Peyton ended Vanderjact's.

 

well said. leadership from ted thompson on down.

 

He does not need to say anything, he did so because he felt NFL players were getting stereotyped by what happened here, which means it most likely does not happen over there in Green Bay. Why would he decide to speak out on something if it were true?

 

proof?

 

Based on, I refuse to buy the spin.

You think Incognito is the only guy on the roster with any of these issues? You only heard about Incognito after the scandal broke. You think Philbin is banging the table to cut every one?

Philbin is no Saint. If he REALLY, wanted Incognito gone, why Did Incognito start every game under Philbin until he got suspended?

 

Just heard a very good point. Isnt it WORSE that Philbin had no idea this was going on? So..either Philbin did..in which case hes lying..and didnt stop this ... or he is completely out of touch with his players. Either case...Im not sure Philbin should remain.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

 

I'm no Philbin defender. But it seems to me that nobody had any idea anything was going on, because Martin never indicated to anyone but friends outside the team and his family that he had an issue.

I think Incognito is a ********, but even he was baffled by Martin leaving the team having anything to do with him. And when he reached out to Martin for clarity, Martin still absolved Incognito or Pouncey, or Jerry of being the problem.

I don't absolve Philbin. He jettisoned vocal players like Dansby, Burnett and Bush in order to adjust the team chemistry to his liking, and then this blew up. But I tend to believe that this issue, Martin's inability to cope with the culture of this locker room, was occurring under the radar.

 

Just finished reading the entire report.

- I feel bad for Jon Martin. Based on all the evidence previously available, my perspective has changed drastically. I've been against him since the team came out in support of Richie. Not anymore. Hard to read the texts to his parents... All of the idiots claiming that Martin's lawyer mother had planned this from the beginning, enjoy the crow. Martin's mom and dad acted like normal parents, concerned for their suicidal son. They just wanted him to be OK, like every other decent parent. They did their best to help him and guide him with parental advice. Clearly, they're a loving family.

- Martin handled the situation badly. He had plenty of opportunities to speak out about it the harassment. Directly to his harassers, to his line coach, his head coach, etc... Even when presented with not one, but TWO chances to seek mental health help, he went through the motions and made little attempt to find help of ANY kind. Clearly he beat himself up about his inability to find a true solution. I guess that's the vicious cycle of depression? Either way, as Well's concluded, his taking the story public made the situation FUBAR. Hope he gets another chance somewhere else and has better days ahead. I don't want him back but I don't wish him ill will.




- Richie is a scumbag. When he released the texts, it looked like he and JM had a genuine friendship. And as Well's concluded, they did. But it was a twisted one, born from some necessity to stop the bullying, and some mutual interest. There was much needed context provided by Wells,. He did a great job, IMO. Given all we know about Richie, dude is ****ed up. While we thought his dark days were behind him, clearly they weren't. They were hidden, at the very least, enough not to be public. One interesting thing about the texts was the manipulation. Richie pretending to be nice to Martin, only to leak the texts within hours. Then him begging Jmart to stand up for him in the media, while simultaneously, he and Pouncey go back and forth about Jmart being a scumbag.

And frankly, I may have been able to see Richie's side of the story (He would of stopped if he would of known he was hurting Martin), but the fine book and other occurrences of the like, clearly demonstrate that he knew, to some degree, the effect he was having on Martin. Giving his experience with bullying others (5+ people in this story alone), Richie knows when he's crossed the line and he dares you to do something about it. He scares you with intimidation and physical violence. And if that's not enough, he's got his buddies to back him up. People have wondered how a 300+lb grown man can be bullied... From the the looks of the story, we know of three for certain. Jon Martin, Nate Garner, and Player A. I don't include Josh Samuda because, by all accounts, he reveled in the attention. This doesn't include, another grown man, who isn't 300lbs, the ***. trainer.

His suspension was deserved. Any further suspension will be deserved. **** off already.




- Someone commented that Jake Long held this **** show together... Please. Given Jake's amusement about Nate Garner's treatment, he likely contributed to it himself. As Nate said, he's dealt with the BS for a long time. Glad he's gone.

- Mike Pouncey is an ******* too. Same for John Jerry. Not sure how I feel about Pouncey remaining in Miami, long term. The report clearly paints him as a follower. Perhaps if surrounded with good people, his actions might change, and he could be salvaged. Given his talent, I feel like I want this to be true rather than actually believing it. Especially since we know he's got issues w/drugs, in addition to being a ****tard. Any suspension is warranted, sadly.

- Jim Turner is an interesting case. It's clear he lied and tried to cover his ***, especially in regards to "Player A." I don't think his joke was particularly heinous (male blow up Doll) because I don't think he knew the full extent to which Player A was being mistreated. Likely, he wanted to lighten the mood and have some fun. Trying to goad Martin into speaking off Richie was inappropriate. Not excusable. However, he did seem to genuinely care about Martin when he went MIA during OTA's. Pressing Martin to reveal the truth was good and following it up with Philbin was good too. Will he be fired? Given how pointed Philbin was with him about the offensive line's potential behavior, I say yes.

- It's amazing that Philbin is getting so much **** about this. There's not a single piece of evidence that he knew or condoned the behavior exhibited from these players. When presented with any evidence that something was foul, he was stern, decisive, and swift. Philbin haters gonna hate Philbin. You don't like him as a Coach? Don't think his X's and O's are up to par? Think his staff is cronyism? OK. Fair enough. But blaming him for this situation, in anyway is bunk.

- The story about the asian trainer is sad. This was easily the most damning evidence of harassment. I felt horrible reading it. What's worse is that he's clearly not in a position to speak out. As he said, the players must trust him for him to do his job effectively so he refused to cooperate, but Ted Well's hung him out to dry. I feel like that piece of the document should of been redacted from the public record. He didn't cooperate, and yet, his story and texts to Martin make him look complicite in the investigation. Oh, and head trainer, O'Neill? The axe can't drop soon enough. **** him.

- Where was Ryan Tannehill? Does this kid have a SHRED of leadership? I read his name like, twice... Even Dlineman knew what was happening and were telling Jmart to fight back... Yet, Tannehill doesn't have ANY involvement in this ****? He doesn't know or see ANYTHING? What about the other abuse to other people? Ryan Tannehill was likely in the best position to know something about everything. He has responsibility w/ every offensive group, as they all relate back to the QB. He defended Richie multiple times... Sorry, but Dan Marino is my standard for QB leadership. And Tannehill isn't close to measuring up. He should be the eye of hurricane, not caught in the wind.

 

Oh ok, its based on made up stuff.

Philbin wanted him off the team for the golf course incident. This came out in club months before it hit the news. The only reason to not believe it is because you simply don't want to. Which is your right, but you shouldn't argue with people if your facts are fabricated.

Cogs was the best player we had at the position. Philbin owes it to the other players to play the best player at the position. If Ireland won't cut and replace the guy, what exactly is Philbin supposed to do?

 

Get over yourself.

What a stand up guy that Philbin. Powerless, he just stood there and took it. Started a guy he wanted nothing to do with. What a wonderful leader that Philbin.

 

I read the entire thing also and agree with every thing you said 100%...GREAT BREAKDOWN

 

I agree with your final statement

but there is no such thing as a culture where player tells another player he wants to rape his sister and mother over and over and over over the course of a year, there just isn't .
You know who agrees with me? all the NFL players speaking out today. They all agree with me. It wasn't just a few texts or a statement or two, Jerry especially did it everyday over and over in front of everybody . That is demeaning and disgusting. Its not right in ANY locker room culture.

 

I think basically I feel the opposite you do about Philbin and Tannehill. Tannehill is a second year player with a lot on his plate. I can understand why he's not getting into something involving his line. You play favorites with your linemen at your peril as a QB, I think.

Philbin on the other hand is the one in charge of all of this.

That's why I assign the blame the way I do, and I was in favor of keeping Philbin before today. I'd now frankly rather not have him. I do recognize that the NFL is going to spin him as the good guy and it may save us a draft pick penalty so you know okay.

 

Please teach me how you can fabricate your own reality. It seems that makes life much easier.

 

Just stop.
Grow up.
Get off my nut.

Pick 1.

 

Just when you thought we were building, we have to go and add a re to that.

 

IPJ didn't say they were going to rape his sister. They said they wanted to have sex with his sister in vulgar detail.

 

I agree with most of that, but as to this part:

"It's amazing that Philbin is getting so much **** about this. There's not a single piece of evidence that he knew or condoned the behavior exhibited from these players. When presented with any evidence that something was foul, he was stern, decisive, and swift. Philbin haters gonna hate Philbin. You don't like him as a Coach? Don't think his X's and O's are up to par? Think his staff is cronyism? OK. Fair enough. But blaming him for this situation, in anyway is bunk."

Martin's father told Philbin directly before the season that there was a big problem going on with his son getting bullied. Imo that changes things quite a bit- Philbin could much more easily play stupid or be stupid, ie Jim Turner never mentioned anything to me, blah blah blah, if not for that meeting. But- the meeting happened, and either Philbin is an idiot, a liar or he just didn't care about the situation enough to follow through. And if his inaction was a result of him getting pissy because Ireland wanted Incognito back and Philbin didn't, so he just ignored the situation- that's even worse.

Imo Philbin has very little charisma and head coach style leadership ability to begin with, then add this mess to the mix:

"But how could Joe Philbin, the head coach, have no idea that there was a "pattern of harassment" being directed at two of his players, plus a member of his training staff? He apparently did not know that his offensive line coach Jim Turner, astonishingly, texted Martin after he left the team -- after the whispers about what had led him to check himself in for mental health care -- and asked him to issue a statement in support of his tormentor. Philbin asked Turner if there was bullying and Turner denied it. Turner told his boss that no one was being called vulgar names. The report said Turner was aware of a running "joke" that a player was gay and that on at least one occasion, Turner participated in the joke. He participated by giving a male blow-up doll to the player. Turner then played dumb with investigators while head trainer Kevin O'Neill grew hostile with them. Those are the people Philbin trusted with responsibility?

That points to a significant issue in management, that leads straight to Philbin's door: There was no sense of accountability, no sense of fear that lying to a higher-up would have consequences, no sense that those in charge were supposed to lead by example and not plummet down to the depths of the lowest common denominator in their midst. Philbin's lieutenants failed him at the most important moment the franchise was facing, but that raises significant questions about why Philbin put them in positions of authority in the first place, and how he had nobody inside the building who could tell him what was happening under his nose.

Perhaps the most critical job that those with the most power on a football team have -- the owner, the coach, the general manager -- is establishing a culture that breeds success. On many teams, that manifests itself in coaches who are considered control freaks, who are aware of everything happening in the organization. They put the proper people in place, anoint the proper players to police the locker room and they become aware when problems arise.

That was clearly absent here, despite the Dolphins nearly making the playoffs this season. One of the sadly laughable aspects of the entire affair is that Incognito was on a leadership committee. That speaks volumes about the complete vacuum Philbin was operating in."

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap20...ts-poorly-on-miami-dolphins-coach-joe-philbin

So on top being a lousy leader as this article alludes to, there's no way that Philbin was blindsided- he knew what was going on- how often does an NFL player's father come to the head coach like this? Is Martin "soft"? Yes, he is. Are Incognito, Pouncey and Jerry a-holes in the context of this debacle? Yes, they are. But as to Philbin- there is no excuse. There is no "what happened"? or "who, me"? excuse to be had, and for him to do that is weak. He was advised of the situation by a player's father, that's a five alarm warning. he just didn't care enough, he didn't follow through and he didn;t do anything until after the fact, no doubt covering his a** with the help of Aponte. Philbin is a sad excuse for an NFL head coach, bottom line. As good as it was to dump the cancer Ireland and Sherman, Philbin should be out on his rear as well.

 

Ross statement if it wasn't posted yet:
http://www.miamidolphins.com/news/p...s-Report/d21b0729-3868-4ab0-b101-6311bb6108df

 

Never seen that sig before. Lol, what a great name!

 

please tell me your kidding with the semantics. Give me a break, they said what they were going to do not what they would like to do by the way.

 

I'm fabricating that you didn't mean that.

I also don't believe the Dolphins play in Miami, just because.....

How am I doing?

 

“When these allegations first came to light, I wanted to know what happened so we could make our organization better. I also began a deliberative and comprehensive process of determining what I could do to elevate conduct in sports, regardless of the then-unknown conclusions of Ted Wells’ report.

“Three months ago, I announced the creation of a committee comprised of Coach Philbin, our CEO Tom Garfinkel, and respected former players and coaches, who would review Ted Wells’ report and our current Code of Conduct and make any further recommendations. Now that the report has been made available to us, the committee can move forward and begin discussions.

“After the situation came to light, I approached the New York University School of Law and the New York University Center for Sports and Society led by Arthur Miller, as well as the Jackie Robinson Foundation on ideas to address my concerns about conduct in sports. I wanted to tackle these challenging issues head on and be a driving force for change not only with the Dolphins, but in all levels of athletics. In working with their research team and lawyers, and with the cooperation of New York University Dean of Law and former White House associate counsel Trevor Morrison in particular, we have researched, debated and consulted dozens of experts and have created a series of initiatives that we will release next week, along with a policy paper examining this issue.

“We seek to create a curriculum which emphasizes accountability and which educates athletes on a standard code of conduct, appropriate use of language, and the elimination of disrespectful and unacceptable behavior in sports, including discrimination or harassment because of race, gender or sexual orientation. We are also exploring possible legislation and a conduct pledge that would be instituted in all organized sports throughout the country to elevate the core value of respect.

I think that Ross would be better served by shutting his pie hole and keeping the stink of this whole situation within the confines of his own team. He wants to turn this disaster into a springboard to change all of sports, and he went to NYU law school for advice on how to begin that process? Holy cow. Just clean up the sh** stain in Miami Ross, I doubt that all of the NFL and the rest of sports for that matter want to change because the Dolphins showed their ***.

 

IMO, if you're Ross, you cut ties with everyone involved: Incognito, Jerry, Pouncey, and Turner. The only one with a shred of potential in the league at this point is Pouncey, and he has a lot of self-created things working against him. It would be nice if he could turn his life around; it is obvious that isn't going to happen in Miami. The Dolphins don't have the leadership--neither players nor coaches--to help him turn his life around, so cutting him would really be throwing the guy a lifejacket at this point.

I was going to say cut ties with Philbin, as well, but it's too late. However, on the question of Philbin:

Philbin seems to be that rare guy who has no control over the locker room yet somehow ISN'T a players' coach. You could get away with that a little bit if you're Mike Martz, but who is Joe Philbin, and what exactly does he offer this team? It isn't leadership; it isn't "rah rah" enthusiasm; and it doesn't appear to be a mastery of X's and O's. You have to let him play out next year at this point, but I think anything short of a miraculous organizational turnaround is likely to get him canned.

 

I agree 100%, he's talking too much nonsense that most owners in the NFL won't pay attention to because their teams aren't up to this nonsense. Just clean up your mess and stay quiet. This team I swear has had the worst PR team working for them since forever now. Who's giving Ross all this ridiculous advice/consultation? That person needs to be fired. I can never imagine in a million years that Paul Allen will ever release a statement like that.

Every single time something comes up, and it seems to happen a lot since Ross has bought the team, he has released a statement so ridiculous. I'm going to form a committee, I'm going to form a council, I'm doing research at this university, I'm going to play a huge role in the next House of Reps election and clean the dysfunction in Tallahassee, and yaddayadda. Dude, just say you're going to make sure this doesn't repeat itself on our team and if it does, people will be held accountable and fired. End of statement.

 

The lawyers have won.

 

Who is advising Ross as to this garbage? My guess is Aponte. Ross's reaction to this, get NYU law school behind him and change laws/team cultures, makes me think that he's even more of an idiot as per running a sports team than I thought. How dare he take it upon himself to force feed changes in sports culture because his team screwed up? As with most things, it's the DEGREE to which all this happened that's the problem, not the entire culture. Ross, clean up your own crappy, brown stained shorts and let the NFL take care of itself. The league has been around a while, they know what they're doing.

 

We used to make fun of Al Davis for being senile, at least Al Davis has had success. Ross is now the new senile owner that no one wants to work for.

 

He's not senile, but I think that in some ways his lack of judgement is remarkable.

 

The lawyers always win. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

 

You can see why they were one of the worst O-Lines in NFL history.

How is Turner still OL Coach? Even forgetting all this, they were f---ing awful. Painful to watch. Meanwhile all this is going on and he apparently doesn't give a crap, while they are playing terrible on the field. Gee, ya think that might be part of the reason?

You think a team like the 49ers are letting that go on?

 

The more I think about the situation I find it impossible to believe that Philbin did not know about this. There are so many people involved in the operation of a football team, from trainers to interns to assistants, and not a single one noticed anything odd or over the top? Nobody ever mentioned anything abusive to their boss? In organizations this big somebody always sees something. Things like this are always noticed eventually.

Combine that with the fact that Martin's father expressed his concern personally and Philbin didn't ask his staff to find out why? I find that impossible to believe.

In my opinion philbin is just a liar and a fraud.

 

Martin was bullied badly. Was some of it blown out of proportion? Perhaps, on as an isolated incident, sure. But the constant bullying tends to make every wound tender and, given his emotional distress (largely in part of this locker room), he finally broke down to the surprise of everyone who thought nothing was wrong. Hopefully this report shows how big of a prick Incognito, and Pouncey are.

-Jim Turner needs to be fired. I am actually dismayed that it hasn't happened yet at this hour.

-Philbin better win a lot of games this year. I wouldn't blame Ross for firing him now either, if that is what he decides.

-The timeline of abuse of Nate Garner and the friendship Incognito had/has with Jake Long makes me think that Jake has a bigger role in this culture than he is given credit for. My guess is Jake was smart enough to know when to stop (whereas Richie isn't), and savvy enough to know when to abandon the ship all together.

-The timeline also at he's up with Ireland's arrival, and given his tremendous amount of major eff ups, leads me to believe that he harvested this on some level. Be it by bringing in players like Richie, or encouraging this type of behavior. We are lucky to be rid of him.

-Pouncey probably needs to go too. Yes, he has talent, and yes, he will excel elsewhere, but if this organization truly wants to wipe the slate clean and restore themselves...they have to do just that.

 

Also, after reading this, it is clear that the text messages that Incognito leaked last week, were not 100% released. Several texts to Martin were left out of the release.

It's also clear that Incognito only sent those "concerned" texts to Martin in an effort to try and clear his name and there was no sincerity behind them. Way to go, moron.

 

The timeline also neatly encompasses Sparano's time here. Since this kind of BS dates back to the Sparano era, it wouldn't surprise me if that meathead was complicit in the establishment of this kind of culture too.

Sadly Jake Long goes down several notches in my eyes. I had hoped he had been standing up this rubbish, but he appears to be in the Turner/Incognito camp at least as a bystander who did nothing.

Whilst it is traumatic I do think this is a long term good for the team. The problems with the OL were never going to resolve until there was a serious change in the culture.

 

I think it is funny to see how some of my fellow Dolphins fans have progressed throughout this entire ordeal.

"Martin is a b-tch".
"He needs to toughen up"
"See, I told you Martin was the problem"
crickets.....

So predictable.