NFL’s Richie Incognito Represents a Formerly Undiscussed Challenge in Sports

We hear about the challenges associated with being in the National Football League. The damage to the body and mind during a long NFL career is heartbreaking in many ways. There have been those who say they wish they had never played.

The other negatives associated with playing the sport professionally are less understood and likely unique to the NFL. All sports have their own forms of bullying and intimidation, especially towards younger players, but Richie Incognito showed that the levels of abuse go beyond bullying. There is an active level of extortion happening amongst players.

Younger players want the respect of their teammates. Most just came into a large sum of money for the first time in their lives and they might feel like they have plenty of it to spare and plenty more on the way. Players like Incognito force their younger “brothers” to pay for extravagances that they could easily afford on their own but that they need to do in order to maintain a level of superiority. It’s a wolf pack mentality. The alphas have to stay on top, even if that means taking food from the pups.

Here’s a great piece from the Washington Post:

Fellow players annually vote him one of the dirtiest competitors in the league, an eye-gouger who has had issues on virtually every team he ever played for. He was suspended for off-field behavior at Nebraska, and in four years with the St. Louis Rams, he was penalized 38 times, including seven times for unnecessary roughness and was waived in 2009 after earning head-butting penalties and getting in a screaming match with then-coach Steve Spagnuolo. He has been fined and warned by the league that he was courting suspension. Now this.

Read More: Washington Post