phinzfan21
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haha yes
Former Offensive Linemen Weigh In
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Finfan53
17-0 Still Perfect
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Turn on a PS3 or XBOX and put in any COD and go online. PC isn't the norm in that arena either. And the people on doing the talking are different colors and ages.
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"True. However, none of us knows whether that was the real cause of Martin's leaving the team. It's entirely possible he just doesn't want to play football anymore, and is using the only card he has available to continue to be paid. "
can't be the cause of Martin leaving the team, unless it was a seven month delayed reaction.
that voicemail was left in april 2013 and martin left the team in late october.
can't be the cause of Martin leaving the team, unless it was a seven month delayed reaction.
that voicemail was left in april 2013 and martin left the team in late october.
Nawledge
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lol funny u say that cuz I just said to my brother the other day...if martin got offended by what Richie said imagine how offended he would be playing some team death match on cod
Article is one of the best out there,good read
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-dolphins-1108-20131107,0,6784656.story?page=1
By DAVE HYDE and OMAR KELLY, Staff writers
6:20 p.m. EST, November 7, 2013
DAVIE -—
He worked in the most anonymous of NFL places, performing the most obscure of duties, and so Artis Hicks chuckles from retirement at all the attention he's received this week.
"Friends, family, everyone's wanting to know about what happened in Miami,'' the Dolphins tackle in 2012 said from his Memphis home. "The thing is, I tell them, 'I don't know.' It makes no sense to me."
But Hicks and four other former and current Dolphins linemen contacted by the Sun-Sentinel offer context, anecdotes and professional perspective as the two men they worked with closely, Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito, remain part of a national media firestorm.
None of the contacted linemen took sides regarding Martin's quitting the team last week and red-flagging Incognito's behavior.
"I don't know the details,'' said tackle Will Barker, who spent various parts of two off-seasons and summers with the Dolphins, from his Vermont home.
"I like both guys,'' said guard Lance Louis, who spent last off-season and training camp with the Dolphins.
But what they say, to a player, is the Incognito portrayed in the national media is one they never saw in person. This cuts across experience (Hicks played parts of 11 years with five teams; Josh Samuda played one year with the Dolphins) and racial lines (four players were black, one was white); and varying levels of time with the team.
"A great dude,'' Barker called Incognito.
"Richie was cool, funny,'' Louis said.
"He plays like how I was taught to play,'' Hicks said. "Be physical. Be nasty. Be aggressive. Everything Richie does is tough. And, yeah, Richie will ride a guy hard, but it's all in good humor."
It's this personality, and if Martin considered it humorous or intimidating, at the center of this issue. There's a dividing line in his career, Incognito once said. He condensed his first four NFL seasons in an interview to, "I was an idiot," as he was voted by the dirtiest player in the league by peers and cut by St. Louis and Buffalo.
These Dolphins say they never saw that Incognito. "Every team needs a Richie," Hicks says. "You love playing with a guy like that."
"He was a leader, a guy who worked hard and demanded you work hard, too,'' Barker said. "That being said, he talked a lot of smack to people. Usually it was from a place of humor, and people got along with that. People would give it right back to him."
This was a common part of the NFL workplace, these linemen said. Hicks said it was no different with the Dolphins than the other four teams he was a part of.
"Especially in a high-stress, physically-demanding job like football, with tight-knit people, you make jokes at each other,'' said Barker, who spent time off-seasons and training camps with the Dolphins in 2011 through 2013 but never made the final team. "And it's like growing up with brothers. You're not going to always get along. But at the end of the day they're still your brothers."
Martin was a rookie in 2012, the same year the veteran Hicks and undrafted rookie Josh Samuda joined the team. And, as rookies, there were certain expectations for Martin and Samuda.
Bring doughnuts or breakfast sandwiches for the other linemen. Keep a meeting-room cabinet stocked with snacks, "so if we wanted some M&M's while we're watching film, they're there," Hicks said.
Each also got their hair cut and dyed as part of rookie hazing. Martin, as a second-round pick, also had to fund for an annual dinner for the offensive linemen. Samuda remembers Martin paying $7,000 (Guard John Jerry says he paid $17,000 for that dinner bill as a rookie).
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-dolphins-1108-20131107,0,6784656.story?page=1
As for Martin, Samuda said, "He got it easiest." And Hicks said: "Jonathan was a great rookie, the best of them. He was the one out the group that didn't complain."
Through it all, Martin and Incognito appeared good friends. They were opposites – the loud, tough, tattooed, profane, white veteran and the young, quiet black player who could have been a fifth-generation African-American at Harvard but chose Stanford instead.
Every teammate sketches the same, friendly picture of them. They sat next to each other on team flights. Went to Heat games. Ate dinners out. "Big Weirdo,'' Incognito nicknamed Martin. No one remembers Martin complaining about the nickname.
"Always saw the two of them laughing,'' Samuda said.
That doesn't exactly fit with a profane, voice-mail message Incognito left Martin last April. "Hey, wassup, you half-n------, piece of s---,'' it began, ESPN reported. Incognito then said he want to "s--- in your f------ mouth' and "slap your real mother across the face."
Dolphins receiver Brian Hartline said Martin played the voice mail in the locker room and was laughing about it. None of the linemen said they heard Incognito use the n-word.
"I'd have been pissed,'' Samuda said.
Samuda added: "You'd need to know the tone (of the voice mail). Until people hear the full message, I don't know what to think because half the time you can't take Richie serious. Richie would say a lot of rude things just to get laugh and then say, 'I'm just joking around.' ''
Another issue: A trip to Las Vegas that was portrayed as Incognito extorting Martin. Martin didn't go on the trip but paid Incognito $15,000 - "fearing the consequences" if he didn't, ESPN wrote.
This wasn't a personal trip for Incognito, the linemen said. It was the annual offensive linemen's trip. Samuda said it was funded, in small part, by kangaroo court fines inside the unit. For instance, Samuda paid $50 for cutting his foot jumping into a pool.
The bulk of the costs are paid by individual players in some proportion to their salary.
"Everyone was asked to put in a little something,'' Barker said. "As a bottom-of-the-totem-pole guy, I didn't pay as much."
Who helped pay for him?"
"Richie, I know, picked up some of my cost,'' he said.
Incognito, as the veteran starter, organized the trip. He made private-plane and hotel reservations and bought tickets to shows. Martin, Barker and Samuda said, originally committed to the trip, then backed out.
"All that stuff is paid for in advance,'' Barker said. "If it came down to it, it was Jon Martin's money, he didn't have to pay for it. But if you're planning on going and commit, you can't really back out at the end and not pay."
(As for what happened on the trip, Samuda said, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.")
It was during this last off-season that the professional roles of Incognito and Martin drew closer. Left tackle Jake Long wasn't re-signed, and Martin moved to left tackle beside Incognito at left guard.
If testing young players was the order of an NFL locker room, pushing Martin became more important to the team. Hicks said it's common for coaches to ask players to "toughen up," a young player if they thought it was needed.
"I could totally see the coaches going to Richie, being the veteran guard, and telling them to take him under your wing,'' Barker said. "There's a lot of that, 'Let's get this guy ready for the NFL,' stuff. But I didn't see Richie singling out Jon more than anyone else."
Beyond the jokes, beyond even the football field, Barker tells a story of who he thinks Incognito is. The offensive linemen went drinking one night in Miami, he said.
"At the end of the night, he called a cab, put me in it with him and took me back to my place,'' Barker said. "After I was home safe and sound, he took the cab to his house. That's who Richie is."
Maybe that's who he is. Martin seems to think otherwise. Those who worked closest with both of them can't explain it. Samuda said he was out with Martin the week the Dolphins traded for left tackle Bryant McKinnie and he was fine.
But Hicks says Martin moving from left tackle to right tackle after the trade, "tells me that's it. There's a lot of stress in a move like that. I'm sure he had some sleepless nights over it."
Hicks then comes back to the spot they all do: "But I don't know what happened. None of it makes any sense."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-dolphins-1108-20131107,0,6784656.story?page=1
By DAVE HYDE and OMAR KELLY, Staff writers
6:20 p.m. EST, November 7, 2013
DAVIE -—
He worked in the most anonymous of NFL places, performing the most obscure of duties, and so Artis Hicks chuckles from retirement at all the attention he's received this week.
"Friends, family, everyone's wanting to know about what happened in Miami,'' the Dolphins tackle in 2012 said from his Memphis home. "The thing is, I tell them, 'I don't know.' It makes no sense to me."
But Hicks and four other former and current Dolphins linemen contacted by the Sun-Sentinel offer context, anecdotes and professional perspective as the two men they worked with closely, Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito, remain part of a national media firestorm.
None of the contacted linemen took sides regarding Martin's quitting the team last week and red-flagging Incognito's behavior.
"I don't know the details,'' said tackle Will Barker, who spent various parts of two off-seasons and summers with the Dolphins, from his Vermont home.
"I like both guys,'' said guard Lance Louis, who spent last off-season and training camp with the Dolphins.
But what they say, to a player, is the Incognito portrayed in the national media is one they never saw in person. This cuts across experience (Hicks played parts of 11 years with five teams; Josh Samuda played one year with the Dolphins) and racial lines (four players were black, one was white); and varying levels of time with the team.
"A great dude,'' Barker called Incognito.
"Richie was cool, funny,'' Louis said.
"He plays like how I was taught to play,'' Hicks said. "Be physical. Be nasty. Be aggressive. Everything Richie does is tough. And, yeah, Richie will ride a guy hard, but it's all in good humor."
It's this personality, and if Martin considered it humorous or intimidating, at the center of this issue. There's a dividing line in his career, Incognito once said. He condensed his first four NFL seasons in an interview to, "I was an idiot," as he was voted by the dirtiest player in the league by peers and cut by St. Louis and Buffalo.
These Dolphins say they never saw that Incognito. "Every team needs a Richie," Hicks says. "You love playing with a guy like that."
"He was a leader, a guy who worked hard and demanded you work hard, too,'' Barker said. "That being said, he talked a lot of smack to people. Usually it was from a place of humor, and people got along with that. People would give it right back to him."
This was a common part of the NFL workplace, these linemen said. Hicks said it was no different with the Dolphins than the other four teams he was a part of.
"Especially in a high-stress, physically-demanding job like football, with tight-knit people, you make jokes at each other,'' said Barker, who spent time off-seasons and training camps with the Dolphins in 2011 through 2013 but never made the final team. "And it's like growing up with brothers. You're not going to always get along. But at the end of the day they're still your brothers."
Martin was a rookie in 2012, the same year the veteran Hicks and undrafted rookie Josh Samuda joined the team. And, as rookies, there were certain expectations for Martin and Samuda.
Bring doughnuts or breakfast sandwiches for the other linemen. Keep a meeting-room cabinet stocked with snacks, "so if we wanted some M&M's while we're watching film, they're there," Hicks said.
Each also got their hair cut and dyed as part of rookie hazing. Martin, as a second-round pick, also had to fund for an annual dinner for the offensive linemen. Samuda remembers Martin paying $7,000 (Guard John Jerry says he paid $17,000 for that dinner bill as a rookie).
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-dolphins-1108-20131107,0,6784656.story?page=1
As for Martin, Samuda said, "He got it easiest." And Hicks said: "Jonathan was a great rookie, the best of them. He was the one out the group that didn't complain."
Through it all, Martin and Incognito appeared good friends. They were opposites – the loud, tough, tattooed, profane, white veteran and the young, quiet black player who could have been a fifth-generation African-American at Harvard but chose Stanford instead.
Every teammate sketches the same, friendly picture of them. They sat next to each other on team flights. Went to Heat games. Ate dinners out. "Big Weirdo,'' Incognito nicknamed Martin. No one remembers Martin complaining about the nickname.
"Always saw the two of them laughing,'' Samuda said.
That doesn't exactly fit with a profane, voice-mail message Incognito left Martin last April. "Hey, wassup, you half-n------, piece of s---,'' it began, ESPN reported. Incognito then said he want to "s--- in your f------ mouth' and "slap your real mother across the face."
Dolphins receiver Brian Hartline said Martin played the voice mail in the locker room and was laughing about it. None of the linemen said they heard Incognito use the n-word.
"I'd have been pissed,'' Samuda said.
Samuda added: "You'd need to know the tone (of the voice mail). Until people hear the full message, I don't know what to think because half the time you can't take Richie serious. Richie would say a lot of rude things just to get laugh and then say, 'I'm just joking around.' ''
Another issue: A trip to Las Vegas that was portrayed as Incognito extorting Martin. Martin didn't go on the trip but paid Incognito $15,000 - "fearing the consequences" if he didn't, ESPN wrote.
This wasn't a personal trip for Incognito, the linemen said. It was the annual offensive linemen's trip. Samuda said it was funded, in small part, by kangaroo court fines inside the unit. For instance, Samuda paid $50 for cutting his foot jumping into a pool.
The bulk of the costs are paid by individual players in some proportion to their salary.
"Everyone was asked to put in a little something,'' Barker said. "As a bottom-of-the-totem-pole guy, I didn't pay as much."
Who helped pay for him?"
"Richie, I know, picked up some of my cost,'' he said.
Incognito, as the veteran starter, organized the trip. He made private-plane and hotel reservations and bought tickets to shows. Martin, Barker and Samuda said, originally committed to the trip, then backed out.
"All that stuff is paid for in advance,'' Barker said. "If it came down to it, it was Jon Martin's money, he didn't have to pay for it. But if you're planning on going and commit, you can't really back out at the end and not pay."
(As for what happened on the trip, Samuda said, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.")
It was during this last off-season that the professional roles of Incognito and Martin drew closer. Left tackle Jake Long wasn't re-signed, and Martin moved to left tackle beside Incognito at left guard.
If testing young players was the order of an NFL locker room, pushing Martin became more important to the team. Hicks said it's common for coaches to ask players to "toughen up," a young player if they thought it was needed.
"I could totally see the coaches going to Richie, being the veteran guard, and telling them to take him under your wing,'' Barker said. "There's a lot of that, 'Let's get this guy ready for the NFL,' stuff. But I didn't see Richie singling out Jon more than anyone else."
Beyond the jokes, beyond even the football field, Barker tells a story of who he thinks Incognito is. The offensive linemen went drinking one night in Miami, he said.
"At the end of the night, he called a cab, put me in it with him and took me back to my place,'' Barker said. "After I was home safe and sound, he took the cab to his house. That's who Richie is."
Maybe that's who he is. Martin seems to think otherwise. Those who worked closest with both of them can't explain it. Samuda said he was out with Martin the week the Dolphins traded for left tackle Bryant McKinnie and he was fine.
But Hicks says Martin moving from left tackle to right tackle after the trade, "tells me that's it. There's a lot of stress in a move like that. I'm sure he had some sleepless nights over it."
Hicks then comes back to the spot they all do: "But I don't know what happened. None of it makes any sense."
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Dolphins101
Starter
The Military was the best in the world back then but sad to say most are soft today its very sad. Just because we have the best weapons doesn't make us the pure best. Face this end towards enemy lol and hold up a time out card because you can't take it good grief.