Lost in the noise around the Super Bowl and, more recently, the talk about free agency and the draft, was an ESPN story last week that essentially changed the narrative around a decade-old story about former Raiders OL Richie Incognito and his former teammate, Johnathan Martin.
11 years ago, Incognito was suspended indefinitely by the Dolphins for conduct detrimental to the team. He missed the remaining eight games of the 2013 season and after a report commissioned by the NFL determined Incognito and two teammates were guilty of regularly harassing Martin, Incognito did not play at all in 2014.
It was a story that dominated NFL headlines for years. Even when Incognito signed with the Raiders in 2019, Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock took a tremendous amount of criticism for signing Incognito.
But six years later, Martin told ESPN last week “I never believed for a second I was being bullied,” and said he has been trying to “fix” the damage ever since.
In reality, Martin could have acknowledged he never believed he was bullied a long time ago, but that’s another discussion. He is saying it now and a lot of what has been written and said about Incognito over the last 11 years has apparently been based on a lie.
With that being the case, it only seems appropriate to revisit one of the most vicious attacks against Incognito and the Raiders at the time of his signing in 2019.
It might be water under the bridge considering Incognito’s vindication (at least in terms of the Martin accusations) hasn’t been covered with anywhere near the same enthusiasm as the downfall of his career. But since the majority of media types who cashed in on Incognito’s troubles aren’t interested in talking about it anymore, let’s talk about it here.
You’ll have to pay money to read the full story, but Ann Killion of the San Fransico Chronicle wrote one of the most scathing reviews on Incognito’s character and the Raiders’ decision to sign him in 2019.
These are three quotes from her column that we know now was filled with and embraced misinformation.
“After spending an offseason blah-blah-blahing about the need for drafting high-quality individuals and searching for players of character, the Raiders signed one of the worst character guys in the league. The type of influence who should be kept as far away as possible from young players who are trying to learn how to be professionals.”
“‘At the end of the day, you can’t have all Boy Scouts,’ general manager Mike Mayock said. Boy Scouts? How about simply decent human beings?”
“Of course, the Raiders kept Incognito away from reporters who might ask uncomfortable questions during OTAs and minicamp. Protecting the bully.”
In hindsight, Killion’s comments were anything but accurate.
The Raiders were never protecting a “bully.”
Incognito may not have been a boy scout, be he proved in his time with the Raiders that he wasn’t one of the “worst character guys” in the league and he is a “decent human being.”
Incognito was a lot of things, but we know now he wasn’t the person a lot of media types tried to paint him to be over the last 11 years.
How those media personalities respond to the truth (now that Martin has told us what it is), ought to be an indicator of whether or not their material is worth reading in the future or not.
But on a lighter note, former Raiders GM Mike Mayock told a story a few years ago about how the team reached the decision to sign Incognito in the first place. It’s worth revisiting today.
Mayock didn’t seem to catch many breaks in his time with the Raiders.
Via the Ross Tucker Football Podcast…
“There is more to that job than I ever knew and it 24-7 and it’s 365. Football is a tough business anyway, but what I think learned more than anything is even when I couldn’t wait to get out of that building and get to the Jersey shore for that two-week period in late-June, early July, before training camp, it was like I would be on the beach with my wife and my phone would ring and it was an agent, it was a player. It was ‘Hey we’ve got to work out Richie Incognito and you need to be there. You’ve got to fly back to Vegas to be there for that workout if you want to sign him.
You’ll love the story. I [flew] back to Vegas. [It was] Tom Cable, our O-line coach, and me and [Jon] Gruden, and Cable was going to put him through a workout. Incognito is in his 30’s, a former Pro Bowl lineman as you know, and Cable has this little square set up where it’s like a defensive backs drill where you’re back-pedaling and hopping. He’s checking flexibility and footwork. Richie does one circuit. Not even a minute. And Cable looks at me and Gruden and says’ I’ve seen enough. You guys good?’
Gruden and I go ‘Yeah, that looked pretty good’ and we signed him. I’m thinking in my head I just flew from the Jersey shore on the beach with my wife for a one-minute workout in Vegas to sign Richie Incognito. But that’s the life of a GM. It’s all day. It’s every day... and you either embrace it, which I did and I think everybody that job does, or it’s not for you. It gets exhausting and you’re more mentally tired... It’s so exhausting, but at the end of the day you love every second.”
x: @raidersbeat
Finally a story worth reading. And Killion has always been a hack. Like the majority of spin doctors that ripped off a platform via social garbage.