It Sounds Like Richie Incognito Will Be a Starter for Rex Ryan's Bills

Richie Incognito is a few days into Bills camp after a tumultuous 15 months out of football. If he’s ever given a public, heartfelt apology for his role as purported ringleader in the Dolphins bullying scandal I haven’t heard it, but enough time has passed that he’s probably paid enough penance for his sins.

Rhetoric from coaches is largely overenthusiastic and therefore misleading this time of year, but Rex Ryan is going out of his way to tout Incognito as a starter. ”One thing’s for sure, Richie’s a starter,” said the Bills coach (via John Wawrow at the AP). ”He looks about as good as any of them. He really does. …I think he’s probably along further than I even thought he’d be as far as coming back in shape. It’s like he never missed any time.”

”A lot of people laid their neck out on the line for me,” Incognito said in the same article. ”And I just wanted to prove them right.”

One interesting wrinkle of Incognito’s situation is that he was investigated by Ted Wells, whose work on the Patriots investigation may retroactively call into question the veracity of all his conclusions in Miami. While the Incognito report was generally well received at the time, there were some oddities about how easy he went on Dolphins coaches in it that could be worth re-exploring.

In any event, Rex Ryan’s praise now is a mini-step towards an inevitable access-based redemption profile on Incognito at some point, provided he stays on a good path in Buffalo.