Of course he'll get on players if they make a mistake because he's a coach, but it's widely known that Kubiak is in fact a players coach. The players love him. Martin needs a players coach like Pete Carroll or Kubiak to nurture and baby him along back into the league. He needs a coach that will say it's on him for being sad.
Coaching has nothing to do with it. An O line has to be a single unit, they have to work together. There is a reason that they are usually the closest members of a team. Martin went to the media and ratted out his buddies on some stuff that should have stayed in-house. You can't have a guy like that on the line. Honestly, I'd be a little surprised if anyone picked him up at all. No one wants a blue falcon in the locker room.
After watching the performance of the Texans offensive line this past season... That offensive line is in no position to turn down help from anyone. It was like the flood gates were open.
You absolutely bring him in. No risk, high reward potential. Likely wont contribute, but who cares? You just cut him if he cant play.
Same. Wonder if BO'B will follow the Belichick model of signing talented players at a discount after being released for conduct issues.
It wouldn't really surprise me, Richie is a scumbag on and off the field, but he's one of those guys where if he's your teammate you like him anyway. I'd certainly rather have him on the team than Jonathan Martin.
You think Jonathan Martin, an introvert, is a lockerroom cancer? I might be wrong, but it seems like the Pats haven't won a championship since Belichick started using that model.
Absolutely, and the worst kind of locker room cancer, he took what should have been handled in house and went to the media with it. You can't have a guy like that around on the O line. He's a headcase whiner that screws over his buddies and rats them out in the media when he feels like throwing a tantrum. Honestly no one should pick him up, he should be blacklisted.
Seriously, I get why people don't want Martin, but to think that a scumbag like Incognito wouldn't be a disruption? Anybody who thinks that is probably a pretty bad person themselves, to not understand how corrosive a turd of a human being like him is.
Richie is the bigger scumbag as a person, but in a locker room there are few things as unforgivable as going to the media and making accusations about a teammate. For better or worse, that's just something that is expected to remain behind closed doors. A douchbag will almost always get more chances than the nark.
According to who, exactly? The only actual data we have is fairly limited and unscientific, but it seems better than the random assumptions outsiders make of the dynamics of an NFL lockerroom. That data shows that while neither is popular, about twice as many NFL players would take Martin as a teammate over Incognito: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9945888/most-players-survey-want-richie-incognito
They haven't needed to rebuild in 15 years either. Belichick isn't the wizard he's often made out to be, but he isn't simply riding Brady to success. They do a fantastic job evaluating risk/reward with their personnel signings. Trading Richard Seymour, cultivating roster depth through the draft to avoid expensive resignings like Seymour or Meriweather, picking up Randy Moss or Aqib Talib, etc. It's a great model, and along with Brady, a big reason they remain contenders every year.
Well, 72 players is a very small sample size, but I do see your point. I'm certainly making some assumptions with my previous statement. It's mostly conventienal wisdom that going above your coaching staff to the media with team issues is highly frowned upon in most major sports. Maybe the players don't take it as seriously. Their paychecks aren't affected, but the coaching staff & ownership who deal with the media fallout/kickback certainly do. It's just bad for business.
It's important to note when that survey was done as well, a lot more information has become public since then so the numbers would likely be different. Incognito is a VERY unlikable person, so it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of people on other teams wouldn't like him but now that more details about what actually happened have come to the surface, I'd bet pretty much no O lineman would want Martin on their team.
That's very possible. But the claim here had nothing to do with the details of the case - just that ratting out people in the media was worse than being a douchebag. It should also be noted that he didn't just go rat someone out to the media. He left the team and didn't say anything at all. Then the media started investigating and the notion of bullying came out. Then the Martin people reported stuff to some combo of the NFL, NFLPA, and the Dolphins. Incognito's name came out a bit later from leaks from one of those sources or Martin's camp. That's a bit different than going to the media and complaining about being bullied - everything was initially handled internally until the media got a hold of it.
Well he eventually did rat out a teammate though, and not just any teammate a fellow O line member. I'd argue that if it was a WR or whatever talking to the media about a CB then it wouldn't be as big a deal, but members of the O line have a special relationship. He should have kept his mouth shut and he shouldn't have melted down that way. That whole incident proved that he can't be trusted to be mentally tough enough to be an O lineman in the NFL and that he can't be trusted to not run his mouth to the media. You have to be able to trust the guy next to you on the line, in a lot of ways, trust is more important than talent.
