I haven’t written about the Hawkeye football team in a few weeks and that’s because this team is turning out to be exactly what I expected them to be.  They are good enough to beat the bad teams and they lose to the good ones.  The Hawkeyes are 6-4 with wins over Missouri St, Iowa St, Western Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern and Purdue, not exactly murder’s row.  Yes Minnesota is playing well now but they were terrible when the Hawks played them and Northwestern and Purdue are bringing up the rear of both divisions of the Big Ten.  On the other hand the Hawkeye’s losses are to Ohio St (9-0), Michigan St (8-1), Northern Illinois (10-0) and Wisconsin (7-2 their loss to Arizona St is completely bogus).  The good news is that this is actually progress because if this was last year they would have found a way to lose both the ISU game and the Northwestern game.  Sitting with 6 wins means the Hawkeyes are going to a bowl game because the Big Ten might not even have enough teams to fill all its bowl slots and now the Michigan and Nebraska games are all about positioning for a better game.  If this were the last two years or so I wouldn’t have much confidence that the Hawkeyes could pull off a win in either of these games but they play the best when the other team doesn’t have a good defense and Michigan and Nebraska are struggling there.  The Iowa defense can shut down anyone if the offense gives them just a little help (I’m talking about the Wisconsin game).  The Hawkeye defense finally broke down in the second half against the Badgers because if you give the opponent the ball enough eventually you get beat.  After watching Michigan and Nebraska play each other last weekend my confidence is up because both teams look beatable.  The bye week should help the Hawkeyes rest up and heal up (I’m looking at you Rudock and Weisman) and figure out the best way to beat the Wolverines.  I’m not ready to hop on the Jordan Canzeri bandwagon after his performance against Purdue but it’s nothing against Canzeri.  Canzeri was the right matchup against a big, strong but slower Purdue defense and it should be obvious to everyone that Mark Weisman isn’t at full strength right now.  Canzeri proved that the coaches need to use him more, although his fumble will still give them pause.  He also needs to buy Don Shumpert dinner for bailing him out by jumping on said fumble.  I would also like to give Shumpert credit for his two big catches at very opportune moments against Purdue.  Neither one was very pretty but they were both highly effective and through all the ups and downs of his career he stuck with it and made a contribution to the win that gets Iowa back to a bowl game.  Thanks Don the Hawkeyes need the extra practices for next year.

Other thoughts

–          The Oregon Ducks lost to Stanford last week and according to standard Heisman BS that means QB Marcus Mariota is out of the running and now Florida St. redshirt freshman QB Jameis Winston is the favorite.  I’ve seen Winston and he’s seriously impressive but the Heisman trophy needs to stop claiming it goes to the best player in college football.  If it did this would be a two man race between Alabama LB CJ Mosley and UCLA LB Anthony Barr.  At this point the Heisman trophy goes to the QB of the team that is the flavor of the month.  Mosley and Barr are the most dominating players in college football but they play LB so they might get a cursory Heisman mention but they don’t have a real shot to win it.

–          As a Hawkeye fan I could strangle Glen Mason from the Big Ten Network for talking non-stop about how great Iowa LT Brandon Scherff is and it’s because he is completely right.  Scherff has some work to do as a pass blocker but he is one of the most dominating run blockers I’ve ever seen and I’m blaming Mason for some mainstream media picking up on that.  Just recently one of the draft experts from CBS Sports put Scherff in his first round mock draft and people are going to start to figure out just how good he can be.  NFL scouts already know about him but I don’t want Scherff to figure out he could be a first round pick because the Hawkeyes need him next season.  I hope Scherff goes the Robert Gallery route and not the Bryan Bulaga/Riley Reiff route.  If he sticks around he will be a top 10 pick in the 2015 draft.

–          I don’t know if Joe Philbin will lose his job as head coach of the Miami Dolphins over this whole Incognito/Martin thing because I haven’t seen much information about how much he knew.  I did read a report that said GM Jeff Ireland told Martin to punch Incognito if he was having a problem with him.  If this report is true that tells me Ireland knew about something going on and he certainly didn’t handle it correctly.  Let’s get something straight, this isn’t bullying. Bullying is what happens in junior high and high school, what happened here was workplace harassment.  Hazing is one thing, like making the rookies carry your shoulder pads back to the locker room, but this situation took it to a completely unacceptable level.  I’ve always believed hazing was stupid for this exact reason, there is always some idiot that doesn’t understand where the line is and thinks it’s an excuse to act like a dumbass.  If Ireland doesn’t lose his job over this he should lose it over signing Mike Wallace.

–          I saw some of the basketball games the other night; Michigan St vs. Kentucky and Duke vs. Kansas.  I think the NBA’s version of tankapalozza is going to kick into high gear.  You don’t need to get the number 1 overall pick to get a franchise player.  Andrew Wiggins (Kansas), Julius Randle (Kentucky) and Jabari Parker (Duke) put on a show the other night.  Throw in Oklahoma St.’s Marcus Smart, Kentucky’s Andrew Harrison and Arizona’s Aaron Gordon and the 2014 NBA draft might redefine the league.

–          I went to the Iowa Hawkeye men’s basketball game against Nebraska-Omaha; yeah I don’t want to talk about it.  At least they won.  I will say this while the Hawkeyes were losing by about 6 with 10 minutes to go in the game I was never afraid they would lose and it’s been a while since I could say that about a Hawkeye basketball team.

Richie Incognito bullying fiasco in Miami

The short version of this story is Richie Incognito is an ass and even though everyone in the NFL has known it since he entered the league the people in Miami are feigning outrage and acting like that’s news to them.  Incognito has been bullying OT Jonathan Martin since he entered the league last year and even though some rookie hazing is normal Martin is no longer a rookie and Incognito doesn’t know the difference between innocent hazing and psychopathic behavior (maybe it sociopathic behavior I can never remember the difference).  The investigation is in the early stages but early reports show text messages and voice mails where Incognito goes far beyond typical ribbing of a newbie (if you want to disgust yourself Google the text messages because I won’t repeat what he wrote).  This isn’t the first time Incognito’s behavior has been a problem, it isn’t the second time or third either, to call Incognito’s behavioral problems a pattern would be an understatement.  He was kicked off of the Oregon and Nebraska teams while in college and was deemed undraftable by many teams because of character issues.  In his nine years in the league he was cut by the St. Louis Rams because of his behavior issues and he routinely ranks as one of the dirtiest players in the game as voted on by his peers.  He held the top spot on that list until a few years ago when Ndamukong Suh replaced him.  Earlier this year during the preseason a simmering feud between Incognito and the Houston Texans DE Antonio Smith boiled over and Smith ripped Incognito’s helmet off and swung it at his head.  Smith’s swing didn’t connect and he was suspended for a few games by the league for his actions.  While the league disagreed with Smith’s actions I don’t recall many players coming out to defend Incognito or saying he didn’t deserve it.  The dirty little secret amongst players was that many were wishing Smith’s swing had connected because as most people know the only thing that gets through to a bully is to punch them in the mouth.  That’s where this story takes a turn.

Jonathan Martin is a Stanford educated man who stands 6’5 and weighs 312 pounds proving that intelligence and physical stature are not deterrents to man like Incognito.  My problem with the media coverage of this is that everyone is talking about it as a case of bullying and hazing just on an NFL sized scale but it isn’t.  While Jonathan Martin may be a soft spoken, thoughtful man unlike most NFL lineman and his personality and demeanor left him susceptible to the tactics of a bully Incognito’s behavior went far beyond that of a school yard bully and right into that of a criminal.  Martin wasn’t afraid to “punch the bully in the mouth” because he thought Incognito would beat him up he was afraid he would do much worse than that.  Incognito is a criminal and police and  the court system need to take a hard look into the threats made against Martin that got him to pay $15,000 towards a trip to Las Vegas that he didn’t go on.  I’m fairly certain that threatening harm to a person or their family unless they pay you money is extortion and there are mob bosses in prison that are proof of that.  The reports are that Incognito’s indefinite suspension will only last long enough for the Dolphins to put together their case so that they can cut him and he won’t be able to say they didn’t have a legal reason to void his contract.  I’m absolutely certain that is the case.  Incognito is toxic at the moment and I don’t believe he will play another down for the Dolphins but there are also reports that he will never play again in the NFL and to that I say “pfff”.  I’m calling bullshit on that one.  He likely won’t get picked up for the rest of this season but next year all bets are off.  Incognito is like a nuclear bomb that went off, the area around him is uninhabitable until the fallout clears but it won’t take that long and by next season someone will give him a shot.  They will claim that he’s gotten counseling and that they will be handled better by his new coach and general manager, wherever that might be, and I only believe this because I know the NFL.  I’ve seen the offensive lines of the Dallas Cowboys, the Arizona Cardinals and numerous other teams that suck on the interior of their lines.  Michael Vick spent two years away from the NFL in prison, Leonard Little once killed a woman during a drunken driving accident, Donte Stallworth killed a man in a drunken driving accident, do you know what all of these players have in common?  They all played in the NFL after these incidents.  I honestly don’t believe any team should give Incognito another chance, he’s had more than enough, but someone will and any team that believes he can change deserves what they get.

All evidence points to Richie Incognito as a man with serious personality and behavioral problems that he has no intention of solving.  If he wanted to be a better person he would have dealt with these issues a decade ago when they almost cost him a shot at a professional football career.  Unfortunately they only almost cost him his shot.  NFL teams have routinely overlooked his problems because of what he can do on the field and it has finally come back to bite a team.  The Dolphins are going to pay a public relations price for this and it may be the final nail in GM Jeff Ireland’s coffin and that could mean trouble for head coach Joe Philbin.  Of course as with anything in the NFL winning trumps all so if the Dolphins can reach the playoffs Ireland and Philbin will be just fine.  Incognito has left a stain everywhere he has been; he is not a source of pride at Oregon or Nebraska as neither institution would dare claim him and he’s a blemish on the St. Louis Rams draft history as they are the team that took a chance on him and it backfired.  The Miami Dolphins are the latest team he has left a black mark on as they are the team that gave him a second chance in the NFL and this is how he will be remembered.  So whether it is Jerry Jones in his quest for a Super Bowl or some other desperate owner overlooking his history Richie Incognito probably isn’t going away…unless he actually goes away, like to prison which is where he probably would be if he wasn’t a professional football player and where he deserves to go.

One thing that has been overlooked in all of this is what it has done to Jonathan Martin’s career.  Martin was a pretty solid OT prospect out of Stanford, he spent his time there as Andrew Luck’s blindside protector.  I always liked Martin’s potential and he has struggled in his two years in the league and I always wondered why.  He is far more talented than what he has shown and now I see that the personal hell Incognito has put him through for the last year and a half has taken its toll.  I hope Martin can get himself right and return to his career and live up to his potential.  Richie Incognito may have ruined his own career, at least I hope he did, but I also hope that that is the only career he ruined because Jonathan Martin deserves better.