Bullying is not acceptable on any level

The women that I drink coffee with at Starbucks on Monday mornings, while solving world affairs, said they would  boycott watching the Miami Dolphins-Tampa Bay Buccaneers Monday Night Football Game.
I agreed to go along, because I had this blogging deadline and I agreed with them that the National Football League had to put its house in order.
Two of the Dolphins' offensive linemen are under the microscope for not being able to get along*. The actions of one, allegedly caused the other to quit the team. Yep, this is professional football I am blogging about.
Alleged bullying -- death threats and racial slurs -- has divided the rest of the Dolphins roster and the coaches were grappling with what needed to be done. I would bet more players and coaches were more upset that what happened in the locker room did not stay in the locker room.
Richie Incognito, an alleged troublemaker who had already been released by another NFL team, was suspended for conduct detrimental to the Dolphins. Jonathan Martin, who is taking a lot of crap for breaking the "Bro Code" the "Blue Wall," etc.,  left his professional football team two weeks ago after making allegations of relentless harassment. Incognito's being named a "team leader" might have been the final straw for Martin.
The off the field antics -- including more than 1,000 text messages and recorded messages between the two players -- have overshadowed the pass protection and offensive line issues that are really plaguing the Dolphins this season. Seriously, someone needs to take their phones away.
Going into the game Miami was 4-4. The Bucs, 0-8, were another story. Neither team needed this distraction.
The NFL, which is doing its own investigation, is taking its hits in the media as reporters take a break from reporting on the on-going concussion issue. 
NFL players are expensive. The egos are enormous. Locker rooms filled with 300-pound guys are crowded. The locker rooms can be pressure cookers, especially if a team is not winning.
Generally teams police their own behavior. At least that seems to be the consensus from other players around the league weighing in on the topic.
*News flash: Not all teammates get along. And this testosterone-fueled bullying thing did not just start. Hazing has also been part of the culture.
We coffee drinkers and most educated people I know are in agreement that there is nothing funny about bullying.
This topic has made it difficult for me to write a blog and keep my pledge to provide at least one laugh per read to my loyal readers. I won't count the 12 followers I have on Twitter.
Bullying is an issue the NFL, the Dolphins and the two players who have set the sports world on its ear this month need to sort out. The NFL which wasn't exactly quick to put the kibosh on towel snapping and verbal abuse in its locker rooms when women reporters were trying to gain access and do their jobs in the 70s and 80s and 90s is now saying it won't tolerate bullying in the locker room because a locker room is a workplace. 
On a personal level, I have been on both sides of the bullying issue. As a first-grader at Philadelphia's Pennypacker Elementary School I was reprimanded for pushing and punching an older boy on a walk one morning to school. The third-grader made fun of my mentally challenged brother. I don't remember tripping him and how he got a bloody nose, but I vividly remember the principal rolling up his sleeves and leaning across his giant desk as the "victim" and I sat shaking in our shoes.
I may be confusing this reprimand with the time I "illegally'' picked flowers on the way to school for a teacher, either way the boy never called my brother the "R" word again. He also didn't walk on the same side of the street to and from school.
The principal told me to keep my hands to myself, after the fight and after picking flowers. 
One of my children was bullied by a classmate, who would spit on my child's lunch in elementary school. At dinner each night I would remind my child to use words not actions to resolve the situation. 
After a few weeks of tossed lunches, I called the teacher, who rearranged the lunch table so the bully could spit on someone else's lunches.
The NFL should set an example for the rest of the world. Bullying is not acceptable and the bully's behavior is what needs to be changed.