Jaguars defensive end Yannick Ngakoue said Bills offensive lineman Richie Incognito used racist slurs towards him in the two teams’ playoff game, but the two players have settled their differences—according to the guy who supposedly said the racist slurs.
Since Incognito and Ngakoue ended up as teammates in the Pro Bowl, they had a chance to hash it out—“hash it out” in this case referring to the alleged slur-user saying sorry to the target of those slurs. Incognito told the MMQB’s Peter King that he “apologized for my part in this” and told Ngakoue he hoped he could get a drink with him.
Via King:
“It was important for me to be able to speak man-to-man with Yannick about it,” Incognito said by phone from Orlando. “It was a reminder how powerful our words can be. But it gets crazy out there. Real crazy. Things are said and done on the football field that are never said off the field, never seen off the field. What happens on the football field very often is not a reflection of who we are as people. That’s why I wanted to see him here. It’s a great setting to talk as men. Yannick is celebrating his first Pro Bowl—much deserved, and he is a heck of a pass-rusher, and we had our hands full with him when we played. And I was glad we were able to get together as men and talk about it.”
The MMQB tried to reach Ngakoue on Thursday at the Pro Bowl, but a spokesman for the Jaguars asked him about the incident and said Ngakoue did not want to discuss the story any further.
“I do think it’s dead,” Incognito said. “I hope it can be put to bed.”
It’s funny how the guy who supposedly said the racist slurs—a guy who has been filmed saying and recorded texting and been accused of saying racist slurs in the past—and his GM are the ones chalking this up as a misunderstanding, or an error in communication, while the target of those racist slurs doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t know! It’s just funny!