Jonathon Martin autistic?

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I don't know if anyone else has heard much about this story (the NFL bullying story out of Miami) , but so much of it sounds like Martin might be somewhere on the spectrum. Has a hard time making eye contact. Seems stuck-up (which they assume is because he is the son of two lawyers, and played for Stanford while going to some other campus, not really sure how that worked but certainly signs of upper-class status) but could just have a hard time getting along period. Never really one of the guys. Pretty much everyone on the team is siding against him (I am sure many here can relate) in favor of the guy who has been named the dirtiest player in the NFL. Seems to have experienced bullying in the past (the amount of stress he has had seems out of proportion to what happened, which was horrible... but not this horrible). Quite timid for a 300 pound lineman (many autistics have this trait, not all). Any of you guys notice this, I checked around online and a couple other people have come to this same conclusion, but no one big yet.

I have wondered the same thing.

I kind of think you can get to the same place in different ways.

Just the fact that it's a hostile, critical environment, you second-guess yourself, try and be perfect, attempt to 'left-brain' social skills which by their very nature are right-brain---and in other ways act in an Aspie-like manner.

Now, all this said, I think we should try and stand up for someone other people are criticizing. And whether Jonathan is Aspie, Aspie-lite, or merely marches to his own drummer, any of that is fine.

And I think we should use this occasion to have a solid, realistic conversation about bullying---and one chock full with talking about better alternatives.

It's a point I keep trying to make on Fins boards, but nobody seems to want to listen to it. Rather, I get my fandom questioned. Cute, huh?

I think you might be on to something here. I don't get why all of his teammates are siding with Incognito - must be an awful team culture down in Miami.

To take a devil's advocate position, though, they also ran a pre-draft psych evaluation on him, but apparently no reports of autism came out. Well, that or nobody wanted to let it leak out, lest it ruin his draft position (although Scott Pioli had him rated in the 6th round due to questions he had regarding Martin's toughness). It could also be that he was well-adjusted at Stanford, which may have been a better environment for neurodiversity than an NFL locker room, and that's why it never showed up on his psych eval.

This is what I would believe. An institution like Stanford had to be much more welcoming and accepting than a pro football franchise.

I hate it for him but it's an interesting situation that I haven't really seen in pro sports before.

Definitely something that came to mind when I heard some of that stuff being brought up about him.

But on top of the previous post, not only was he an ancient history major at Stanford both his parents are Harvard graduates. So he could be autistic but I think it's also a lot to do with just gorwing up in a lifestyle wholly different than any kind of atmosphere in an NFL locker room.