I may be in a small minority there, but I don’t think Richie Incognito is guilty of bullying teammate Jonathan Martin.

Let’s start by admitting that Incognito, who has some history of being a boor, is a first class jerk. Even under the general umbrella of traditional hazing he has shown he has no limits as far as obnoxious and offensive behavior goes. He’s been suspended by the Miami Dolphins, who claim surprise at having such a miscreant in their midst.

But there are a couple of things about this that bother me and don’t exactly ring true.

The head coach, Joe Philbin, who cut his teeth with the Green Bay Packers, held a news conference categorically criticizing the actions of Incognito, and professing surprise at how serious this matter is.

Well pardon me, but I have never, ever, known a football coach to be unaware of things like this going on with his team. Football is an intimate sport and there are few, if any secrets. For a head coach to say he didn’t know what was going on requires suspension of belief.

Football is a unique sport, built on aggression and violence. Antisocial behavior is not only tolerated, in many cases it is encouraged within the confines of the practice field. Nobody wants football players breaking up taverns and pounding the heads of civilians, but among the elite on the team, it’s always been that pretty much anything goes.

I have spent a lot of time in my life in football locker rooms and in taverns and restaurants and clubs and golf courses and practice fields with players and coaches.

More than any other game, football is a game for men. For tough men. For men who can give it and take it. The Marlboro man was a football player. So was Ray Nitschke, Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf and Ivan the Terrible. And part of actually being a tough man is acting like a tough man. You swear like a sailor, you spit, you pass gas loudly and laugh about it. You talk about girls and you talk about the way guys look.

On a professional football team there is no place for wimps. Nobody plays the song "Feelings" in the locker room. Maybe "The Theme from Shaft" or "Gods of Thunder" by KISS. Football is a game of excess. Practice hard. Play hard. Party hard. Recuperate hard. Get ready to do it all again next week.

Football players have wives and children and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. But above all else, they have each other. Football players understand, probably better than any other athletes I’ve known, that the group is more important than the individual.

And if you have a weakness, or even a suspected weakness, watch these world class athletes dig it out and expose it to the glare of a spotlight for everyone to see. There is no fear in football. Courage doesn’t even begin to capture what it means to be a professional football player.

And there’s something about Jonathan Martin leaving the team and getting together with a lawyer that sticks in my craw. It’s not the way a football player should react. This is something that the code says should be settled man to man.

I don’t like bullies. I’ve stepped in several times in my life to stop bullying. One of my great fears for my children and now for my grandchildren is that they get bullied. My desire to protect them from being bullied knows no bounds.

This dispute between Incognito and Martin is much more than an isolated incident of bullying or using the "N" word. It speaks to a culture that is populated by tougher men than you will see anywhere else, with the possible exception of SEAL Team 6.

The NFL may make noises about this incident, but until the league takes a stance that provides for outlawing any forms of harassment and strict and severe penalties for violations, we will continue to see instances like this.

The issue is whether the NFL really cares about the way these players behave in a group in the locker room, or not.

My guess is not.