Lydon Murtha’s article states that embattled Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito didn’t bully teammate Jonathan Martin. Lydon Murtha, an ex-teammate of Incognito, said that there have been some misinterpretations.
“ I went to college at Nebraska with Richie Incognito, and I consider myself friends with him and Jonathan Martin, but I don’t speak with them regularly and I’m not taking sides. I’m only interested in the truth, which is what I’m going to share, from my own experiences and from conversations with friends still on the team,” he wrote in an article on MMQB.
He added that “I don’t believe Richie Incognito bullied Jonathan Martin. I never saw Martin singled out, excluded from anything, or treated any differently than the rest of us.”
But Murtha, who played for the Dolphins from 2009 to 2012, said that Incognito “screwed up” when he made a racist comment.
“That, I cannot condone, and it’s probably the biggest reason he’s not with the team right now,” Murtha said.
Martin also alleged that Incognito forced him to pay $15,000 for a trip that he didn’t attend.
But Murtha added that in his opinion, “he’s not the kind of person who would extort someone.”
He claimed that the Dolphins’ statements about not knowing anything about hazing is an “outlandish lie.”
“The coaches know everything,” he wrote. “The coaches know who’s getting picked on and in many cases call for that player to be singled out. Any type of denial on that side is ridiculous. I have friends on more than a dozen teams, and it’s the same everywhere. What people want to call bullying is something that is never going away from football.”
