Former Dolphins offensive line coach Jim Turner, who was fired by the team after his "actions were questioned" in investigator Ted Wells' February '14 report surrounding Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin, "filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against Wells and his law firm," Paul Weiss of N.Y., seeking damages for defamation, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.com. Turner, who thinks his reputation and career have been "unfairly affected, believes that Wells' report on the Dolphins negatively and perhaps permanently altered his ability to land another NFL coaching job." Turner alleges that the NFL commissioned Wells and Paul Weiss to "write a report that would placate the public and assign blame to certain individuals such as Turner, while the law firm was well-paid and well-positioned for future work on NFL cases such as the one that turned out to be Deflategate." Turner's attorney, Peter Ginsberg, believes that Wells and the firm "failed to include significant testimony from former and current Dolphins coaches and players in the report, opting instead to blame the events on, among others, Turner." Ginsberg also believes that Turner "was falsely accused of helping create an atmosphere that allowed bullying and harassment to happen and, even though Wells knew the accusations were not true, he included them in the report anyway, damaging Turner's reputation and inflicting emotional distress, pain and suffering" (ESPN.com, 8/10). Turner "hasn't worked in the NFL" since Wells' report (South Florida SUN-SENTINEL, 8/11).
INCOGNITO NOT COMPLETELY BASELESS: Incognito over the weekend criticized the NFL's investigation into the bullying scandal, claiming it was not an independent investigation. ESPN’s Bomani Jones said Incognito made “some good points,” including the fact recent NFL investigations "seem to operate where they have an allegation and then everything is tailored around on trying to make the allegations stand up as opposed to actually investigating whether or not the allegation is true.” But Jones added Incognito also said Goodell was a “good commissioner ... and he appreciated things that he had been doing to clean up the game" (“Highly Questionable,” ESPN, 8/10). ESPN's Michael Wilbon said, "This is like when Jose Canseco would level some accusation at somebody.” But ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser said, “You have to separate the message from the messenger.” He noted what Incognito said "has the resonance of truth, to me” (“PTI,” ESPN, 8/10).
