Suspended Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito finally broke his silence on the bullying scandal, claiming during an interview on Fox on Sunday that Jonathan Martin uses the same vulgar language as Incognito when they talk to each other.
Incognito, who’s accused of bullying Martin right off the team, confirmed he left a voicemail on Martin’s phone in which he called him a “half n—–” and said he’d “kill” Martin. But he added that Martin, before bolting, texted Incognito saying, “I will murder your whole f——- family.”
“People don’t know how Jon and I communicate to one another,” Incognito said in the interview. “For instance, a week before this went down, Jonathan Martin texted me on my phone, ‘I will murder your whole f—— family.’ Now did I think Jonathan Martin was going to murder my family? Not one bit.
“He texted me. I didn’t think he was going to murder my family. I knew it was coming from a brother, I knew it was coming from a friend, I knew it was coming from a teammate. That just puts in context how we communicate with one another.” Incognito added that Martin reached out to him to say that he didn’t blame his teammates for what was happening, but that the locker room culture in football was what got to him.
Martin’s lawyer David Cornwell answered Incognito later on Sunday, trying to show that his client was obviously joking in his text to Martin. He shared on Twitter what Martin sent. It was typed in white lettering on a photo with a smiling woman holding a wide-eyed dog with its mouth open. The Internet meme, dubbed “Creepiest Dog Ever,” is split in half, the original photo on the left saying “I will murder” at the top. On the right, the photo is zoomed in on the dog with “your whole f—– family” at the bottom. Cornwell’s tweet said “JMart’s text 2 Richie Incognito. U decide…..”
Incognito tried to defend the voicemail he left for Martin in April that contained a racial slur and threats after Martin skipped two days of OTAs — the message that led to Incognito’s suspension — saying, “What I was going for, I hadn’t seen my buddy. I wanted to shock him.”
He added, “No matter how bad and vulgar it sounds, that’s how we communicate.”
But he said, seeing the words of the voicemail, “I’m embarrassed by it. I’m embarrassed by my actions.”
Incognito called himself a “good person,” and that if Martin were sitting next to him, he would give him a hug.
“No question, if you go by just the knucklehead stuff I’ve done in the past, you’re sitting at home thinking this guy is a loose cannon, this guy is a terrible person, this guy is a racist,” he said. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The NFL Network reported that Dolphins coach Joe Philbin and general manager Jeff Ireland are expected to lose their jobs because of the scandal, which the NFL is now investigating. Fox reported that Incognito’s cell phone contained 1,142 texts between them.
