First I've seen and heard most of the sort of thing being said back and forth in frat houses and locker rooms,it's juvenile to say the least, but after all is said and done a culture exists ,so Richie is a dullard but not the instigator of the culture ,but every crusade can always profit from a poster child and Richie is doing a bang up job of that and FWIW should IMO have quit talking until the report came out.
There are a lot of opinions on this and from people with pre determined attitudes about it,but none of us were there and with all the conflicting accounts of whether what occurred is or isn't common place I can't see where admitting to it being commonplace has an upside,in fact I think it has a downside so I don't expect people to admit to it unless they are being truthful ,but I expect a wholesale denial just to protect ones own image.
I'd bet if you dug deep into the league Darren Sharper isn't alone in his carnal practices,in fact I'd bet there are a lot of chemically enhanced trists,good luck getting anyone to admit they did the same thing though,again NOT comparing the behaviors just the motivation to admit is absent in both.
So as far as taking testimony ,numbers to me don't matter.
I think we have only to look to our coaching staff how quickly the league reinstated it's poster boy for the "bounty" problem and surmise that the public sentiment is on Martins side here and the league knows it,just like they did in the "bounty" scandal,I'm not using the "gate " term cuz FWIW it's a political reference to keep a political scandal alive well after it's time.
So take whatever side you choose here,I NEVER expected the league to come down on Richie's side here,the culture is embarrassing,it's crude and doesn't fit the leagues desire to look bright , shiny and civilized ,even though they maim human bodies weekly.
The NFL has to conform to or defy the public's sentiment here ,and their report will always be for me an effort to establish their deniability that it was going on and that they never have and do not now condone nor allow Richies appalling behavior ( there description). I promise if you were to get a pass key and could get into the audio library of NFL films and hear the unedited versions ,you certainly wouldn't buy the commissioners "who knew?" position.
So while some scream for Richie's scalp ,I don't ,I think if he was so far out of line/the norm someone in that locker room would have stopped him and the others,that those who witnessed it ,Jake Long who I have heard no accounts of him intervening ,acted cowardly if they weren't used to such behavior,that the league is wanting to wrap this all up in a neat fat package and get past it so we can all go back to imagining the world is a nicer place than it is.
