Jonathan Martin and the Miami Dolphins

oh yeah. I did post his rookie ratings from Pro Football Focus

 

A bust would be someone who does not start. Martin started every game while he was on the Dolphins. A complete bust would be a non-starter. I don't know how good a tackle Martin is is but if you were rating draft picks he would be would be at least a C-.

 

Would agree. Seemed like he had an upside. Watched him on all 22's pretty much play to
standoff with Robert Mathis and then watched Mathis the next week eat up the Broncos
Ot's and just takeover the game. In the NFL I think it's better to have a left tackle with
a quick drop step than a mean streak.

 

How good of a player Martin is or is not seems pretty irrelevant. If he's on the team, he's a teammate and deserves to be treated as such. Not every player is going to be an All-Star.

 

It seems they thought he was an obvious talent, but there was this unknown upside that could be achieved if only he could just get tougher/meaner/whatever. The dreaded "P" word --- potential.

Just protecting him would have left you with the player you have --- and not the player you think he could become.

If that was their mindset, then things almost had to play out as they did. What they had --- while good --- just wasn't viewed as good enough.

 

I have no doubt that NFL DE's were saying things 10 times worse to Martin during a game
than what was in the message that Incognito tweeted.

 

I suppose that might work with some people, but it obviously had the opposite effect with Martin. As former coach Jimmie Johnson once said "You can't treat everyone the same. Because everyone isn't the same."

 

I suspect that it is true that Martin was not living up to the potential that the Miami staff saw in him. Didn't they just move him back to right tackle?

But I think that verbal abuse and general instructions to "toughen up" are often bad coaching. Was Martin given a specific set of behaviors to "toughen up" What does "toughen up" mean anyway.

I also think that to generally play in the NFL or any other professional sport requires a great deal of competitiveness. Occasionally you will find some one who is so gifted that they can be an accomplished professional athlete and not have that innate competitiveness. They are basically smart enough to realize a sporting match is not that important.

Generally very large, athletically gifted people fall into this category. There very size and agility allow them to excel. But coaches, who are competitive, find them frustrating. Off the top of my head, Joe Barry Carroll and Ralph Sampson, were classic examples.

 

Thus it becomes a huge part of the coaching job to find the proper way to motivate these athletes, to get the most out of them.

 

Not trying to interject politics here but NY Times political reporter Jonathan Martin has been getting some hilariously sad tweets sent his way.

Deadspin has some of them here:

http://deadspin.com/people-keep-tweeting-hate-and-support-at-the-wrong-jona-1462380461

 

I know it was impossible this thread wouldn't descend into lunacy, but this story is one of the stranger stories I remember. Just odd.

And Jay, that sounds like what Baltimore broadcaster Gerry Sandusky has to endure.

 

Heard an interesting theory today...

The NFL likes that this scandal has stopped all of the Redskins and concussion talk.