Joe Philbin addresses Richie Incognito situation

In a press conference today, Miami Dolphins head coach addressed the situation with Jonathan Martin, Richie Incognito and took questions from the media.  Philbin came out with strong voice and was direct to the situation and laid out plans to what would happen if the NFL investigation comes back negatively, suggesting that the Dolphins is a bad work place environment.

In questions regarding specific details of the situation, Philbin was unwilling to comment or claimed ignorance.  He opted to be unwilling to comment until the investigation is completed on most issues and said that much of it will be addressed in the investigation.  Philbin also declined to comment on conversations he had with players.  The only thing he would say is that Martin never brought up any of the issues he had with Philbin.

When it came to specifics such as the alleged voice mail that is to have potentially had Incognito making a racial slur toward Martin or possible evidence on the HBO show Hard Knocks, Philbin claimed he had not seen or heard these things, remarked he was too busy working.

Perhaps the most damning statement Philbin made was basically saying that if the NFL came back and found that the Dolphins were an unsafe place to work, he would do everything in his power to work to fix it and make it a good place to work.  That sounds good in theory, but there is a legitimate chance that Philbin could end up losing his job over this situation as part of a total house cleaning and the responsibility of fixing the environment would be placed on his successor.

There is so much that is left to be found out and details that have yet to be unearthed, but the indications do not look good for anyone involved.  Richie Incognito certainly gets the brunt of it, but the Dolphins’ organization looks bad because they either knew it was happening and allowed it to happen or they did not know and look incompetent from an oversight standpoint.  The Dolphins have gone from saying there was nothing wrong to taking significant action over the course of barely a day, which is another issue that will be brought up and criticized.  Philbin may be fairly or unfairly receiving criticism over this, but however it does end up turning out, some or much of the responsibility will end up falling on him.  The Dolphins also have to prepare to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday Night Football, which put a national spotlight on the issues going on here.