It’s hard for Cam Cleeland to look at the news coming out of Miami over the last week.
Partly because of his own experience with hazing, which left him with one good eye.
The former tight end was brutalized during a ritual running of the gauntlet during his rookie training camp with the Saints. The kicks and punches were one thing, but one teammate (linebacker Andre Royal) hit him in the face with a sock full of coins, crushing his eye socket and nearly costing him his eye.
“Coach [Mike] Ditka gave me a speech as soon as it was done,” Cleeland told Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times. “He was like, ‘Oh, man, you should have just popped those guys in the mouth.’ I said, ‘Coach, there were 60 of them.’”
That memory piqued his interest in the Jonathan Martin-Richie Incognito situation, particularly since he was playing in St. Louis when the Rams drafted Incognito.
“I’m not afraid to say that he was an immature, unrealistic scumbag,” Cleeland said. “When it came down to it, he had no personality, he was a locker-room cancer, and he just wanted to fight everybody all the time. It was bizarre beyond belief.”
That’s why he, like many, can’t believe the questioning of Martin’s motives.
“Any NFL player that gives Martin a hard time — I don’t know him — but any guy who says, ‘This guy should have been a tough guy, should have stood up to him,’ it’s BS,” Cleeland said. “I don’t care if you’re a good guy or not, you don’t deserve that kind of treatment in any workplace. You’ve got to be tough. We’re all tough guys. But in the end, you’re still a human being.”
That’s something that Cleeland has every reason to question, after the way he was treated his rookie year.