By Mike Florio / ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports
The Bills, the NFL, and authorities in Georgia currently have begun the process of piecing together the events leading to the vicious beating of Delicia Cordon, and whether Bills running back LeSean McCoy had any responsibility for it. They probably should speak to former Bills offensive lineman Richie Incognito.
“I support and stand by my boy, Shady,” Incognito said Tuesday night on Twitter. “I know the full story and he didn’t do it. People can be quick to make false assumptions without knowing the full story.”
In a separate tweet, Incognito said of Cordon, “Enough with this fake lifestyle she was living.”
It’s unclear whether Incognito is simply claiming that McCoy didn’t personally assault Cordon or whether Incognito knows (or thinks he knows) with certainty that McCoy had no involvement with it.
“She was definitely assaulted,” Incognito tweeted. “Police were involved. Shady was in Florida and she was in Atlanta.”
But no one seems to be saying (at this point) that McCoy actually performed the assault. The question is whether (as strongly implied by Cordon’s lawyers) McCoy essentially played the Rae Carruth/Jeff Gillooly role, pulling the strings and/or pushing the buttons (and/or paying the money) necessary to get someone to invade the house McCoy owns, retrieve specific items of jewelry that McCoy had given to Cordon, and send a message in extreme physical fashion.
If there’s any truth to the not-so-subtle allegation made by Cordon’s lawyers, it’s entirely possible that a Fargo-style scenario played out here, with the brutal assault of Cordon not part of the plan but something that just happened in the moment. That definitely wouldn’t insulate McCoy from scrutiny by the league or the law, but at this point no possibility should be ruled out.
And the Bills, the league, and the authorities may want to get in touch with Incognito, if for no reason other than to find out whether he has communicated in the past day with McCoy (especially by text), and what McCoy specifically had to say.