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Richie Incognito on bullying scandal: ‘I have nothing to say’ to Jonathan Martin

Long before the NFL world was turned upside down by domestic violence scandals and Deflategate, the drama that took place in South Beach during the 2013 season seemed to be what everyone was talking about.

A bullying scandal surrounding two professional football players, one of which decided to leave the Miami Dolphins completely.

It seemed ripped from the headlines of a bad late-night network television show. But it was real, and it left the NFL reeling. Was bullying itself prevalent in locker rooms? Who was to blame? Did this say more about the machismo culture within the sport itself?

These questions were asked. And asked again. And driven into some sort of narrative cementing the NFL as a barbaristic entity not fitting the mold of modern day society.

In the years that’s followed, the two key components in this scandal have taken much different paths. The “bully,” guard Richie Incognito, has moved on to the Buffalo Bills, earning a spot in the Pro Bowl last season.

Meanwhile, the “victim,” offensive lineman Jonathan Martin, is no longer in the league. He decided to call it quits after an ill-fated attempt to overcome the drama as a member of the San Francisco 49ers.

While we’ve largely moved on from the drama that engulfed the football world some three years ago, Incognito decided to bring it back up in a recent interview.

It’s in this that we start to understand just how much the scandal itself impacted his relationship with Martin. A relationship that was once close, but doesn’t seem to exist at even the basic level anymore.

“Zero conversation with Jonathan Martin,” Incognito said, via ESPN.com. “He has reached out and tried to speak a few times, but I have nothing to say.”

There are surely some hard feelings remaining here. For Incognito, this seems to make some sense. He was suspended for the final eight games of the 2013 season before sitting out the entire 2014 campaign. Needless to say, the guard’s bottom line was impacted by what occurred in South Beach.

“The whole incident went down (and) I’m a pariah in the national media and basically turned radioactive there for a few months,” Incognito continued. “Jonathan and I were close friends. I cared about him. If anybody was there for Jonathan, it was me. And Jonathan had his troubles. He had his demons, like we all do. He left for whatever reason and he handled it the way he did, and then really the story kind of takes on a life of its own.”

Hard feelings aside, this situation also had wide-ranging ramifications for Martin, who said in the past that he attempted to commit suicide multiple times following the incident.

It’s definitely interesting to catch up on the drama that plagued these two men years back. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t seem like either of them has fully moved beyond what happened.

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