What the hell, Tiki time.

[boohyah]

Tiki says he doesn't deserve Giants' scorn

by Ian O'Connor

Affordable housing is his new cause, and not even a three-touchdown night against the 18-0 Patriots could top the feeling of putting a roof over a desperate family's heads. But this weekend — the weekend he could've been the 32-year-old star running back on a Giants team that will try to beat the unbeatable — Barber is putting his moral compass to rest.

 

He's focusing on football, and the NFC champion he left behind. Barber is scheduled to be in Glendale, courtesy of his employer, NBC, because the greatest offensive player in Giants history wants to observe a team that didn't invite him to watch.

 

"I'm Public Enemy No. 1 if you're with the Giants," Barber said. "With every heroic story there has to be a foil, and I'm convenient for that. I am the (expletive) foil in a Shakespearean play."

 

Over the phone, one can hear the boiling emotion rising from Tiki's toes. He sacrificed his body and soul for the Giants. At a generously listed 5-10 and 205 pounds, Barber rushed for 10,449 yards over 10 hard-knock seasons in the NFC East. He appeared in 154 out of a possible 160 regular-season games, and saved Tom Coughlin's job at the close of the 2006 season by running fearlessly with a broken thumb.

 

But Barber has been made an outcast by the Giants and their fans. His highlights on the Giants Stadium video board have been greeted by boos, and his absence has been widely credited as the reason the team bonded to win 10 consecutive road games and reach the biggest Sunday in sports.

 

Popular opinion says team chemistry improved when Tiki and his self-serving agenda marched side by side out the door. Of course, the people who advance this theory are quick to neglect the fact that Eli Manning is a much better quarterback this year than he was last year, and that the Giants — devastated by injury in '06 — have been relatively healthy this season.

 

Those people are also quick to forget that rookie general manager Jerry Reese, the first African-American GM in the Super Bowl, made all sorts of helpful additions to the roster, and that Reese would be among the team's many front-office officials who'd concede (on truth serum, anyway) that Barber would've given the Giants a far greater chance to upset the Patriots than they'll have without him.

 

"Love me or hate me or be indifferent about me, that doesn't bother me," Barber said. "But when you don't respect who I was as a player, that hurts ... For people to discredit what I was as a player is disingenuous at best and malicious at worst."

 

Teammates, coaches, fans and columnists have been all too willing to cite Barber as the ultimate addition-by-subtraction Giant. Never mind the fact that he sent his team to the playoffs, and saved Tom Coughlin's career, by rushing for a franchise-record 234 yards and three touchdowns against the Redskins in the final game of 2006.

 

Never mind that he gained 2,390 yards from scrimmage the year before, the second-highest total in NFL history.

 

Somehow, some way, the little back with the not-so-little mouth was cast as the Giant who was holding the franchise back.

 

"I tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it," Barber said. "If you want to vilify me for being honest, you have to hate me then."

 

 

Hate is a strong word, and not one the Giants use in public when describing their feelings for Barber. But a strong undercurrent of ill will runs through a locker room full of Giants who have convinced themselves they are better off without a star who was never afraid to rip Coughlin when he deserved to be ripped.

 

As a keen observer of human nature, Tiki has come to terms with the flawed reasons for the pariah treatment he's received. But for his closest advisers and friends, longtime rep Mark Lepselter among them, watching Barber's legacy get soiled has been a gut-wrenching experience.

 

Those friends want it known that Barber supported Coughlin in an exit interview last January, when team president John Mara was seriously weighing the possibility of firing the coach. Mara confirmed that Barber was among five or six veterans who advised him that Coughlin should be retained.

 

"Keep him, John," Barber told Mara in the team president's office the day after the Giants suffered their wild-card loss to the Eagles. "I think he's a great coach and I give him immense credit for helping me as a player, John. But he didn't treat us the right way. As a 31-year-old player and a 10-year vet, he rubbed me the wrong way.

 

"But John, I think he's changing. I think he can be the guy who gets this team going in the right direction."

 

Barber and Coughlin had come a long way in three years.

 

Coughlin and the running backs coach, Jerald Ingram, had reinvigorated Barber's career by changing the way he carried the ball and making his fumbling problems disappear.

 

Tiki appreciated the tip. He didn't appreciate Coughlin's draconian approach to practice.

 

"I didn't like how Tom treated me as a player," Barber said. "As a person, he was great asking about my wife and kids. Tom was unbelievably good that way. But once I got into a football environment, that person completely disappeared. He was completely controlling. He was like, 'Don't look at me. What are you looking at? Don't show me any sign of disrespect.' I just felt that was the wrong way to go about it."

 

 

Tiki Barber can't believe the Giants and their fans have forgotten what he did on the field over his final three seasons. (Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)

 

Barber and Coughlin forged a temporary peace on Sundays, when Tiki wanted the ball and Tom gave it to him.

 

"People assume we had this I-hate-you relationship, and it wasn't like that," Barber said. "On Sundays, I was right there beside (Coughlin). Stood right next to him for every national anthem. I was with my coach on game day.

 

"My problems with him came during the week. 'Tiki, I need you out here practicing full speed, not half speed.' And I felt like, 'Coach, I just rushed for 160 yards, I'm 31, I feel like (expletive), and I've got a broken bone in my hand.' I didn't miss a single practice under Tom. Not one. Zero."

 

Their bond of trust suffered its first compound fracture in the playoffs following the 2005 season, after the Giants went down 23-0 at home to a Panthers team coached by former Giants defensive coordinator John Fox. Barber had run with a vengeance all year to honor the memories of co-owners Wellington Mara and Bob Tisch, who had died during the season.

 

"All season Coach Coughlin kept saying, 'We are the team of record for Wellington Mara and Bob Tisch,'" Barber said. "So that season took on almost a divine meaning for me ... and then we laid an egg in our own stadium.

 

"It was like crashing down in a way that really changed me ... I wanted everyone in that room to know we were the team of record for Wellington and Bob and we were (expletive) for that game.

 

"Tom didn't say it, so I said it for him."

 

Into a live microphone, Tiki said the Giants were outcoached. Coughlin probably didn't forgive, and definitely didn't forget.

 

Fast forward to the 2007 preseason, long after Barber had used his first day at NBC to declare that Coughlin's old school approach had snuffed out his desire to play. Tiki widened the gap between his world and the Giants' by doing what he was being paid by Dick Ebersol to do: give his honest opinion.

 

And his honest opinion of Eli Manning's skill set as a leader wasn't very neighborly.

 

"Last year I told Eli, 'Look, you've got to get up and start talking and be a vocal leader," Barber said. "I handed those duties to him. So middle of the season, he gets up and he's never done this before. I'm there, all the old veteran personalities are there. And this insecure guy with a little voice starts trying to yell at us and motivate us.

 

"It was funny. It was comical, but I didn't say it (on TV) in any malicious way. It was literally lost in translation. I'm sure I sounded the same way Eli did when I first did that. And then it's presented to Eli like, 'Did you hear Tiki called you a comical leader?' I called Eli the next day and left him a message. I told him, "It wasn't in context. Maybe I used the wrong word and I'm sorry if it offended you. You know I know you're a good leader.' But Eli never called me back."

 

The gap between former star and former employer widened like never before. Manning actually fired back on Barber, showing an honest-to-God pulse for the first time.

 

The Giants recovered from a slow start to deliver a season touched by stardust, and Barber lost himself in his promising TV career and a project that would have a far more profound impact on society than a 60-yard run to paydirt.

 

"I simply didn't want to play football anymore," Barber said. "I just didn't want to keep getting beat up ... I got out before the game kicked me out."

 

Barber did NBC stories on soccer-playing refugees from war-torn nations, and he invested in a project designed to construct and refurbish homes for low-income families.

 

"Work like that," Barber said, "is absolutely more rewarding than playing football, which isn't fulfilling in a long-lasting way. When you impact a disadvantaged kid's life, that's lasting forever."

 

Barber's work has shielded him from some of the big blue daggers sent spinning his way. But in the end, he's well aware of the cruel storyline getting wide national play.

 

The Giants are better off without Tiki, better off without a back who rushed for 1,518 yards, 1,860 yards and 1,662 yards in his three years under Coughlin before retiring at the top of his game.

 

"I know for a fact how I played and what I stood for," Barber said. "History will judge me favorably."

 

History will also be kind to the Giants. Manning has arrived as a quarterback, and Coughlin has reinvented himself as a semi-approachable coach who has a leadership council of veteran players policing the locker room.

 

"I could have gone in there after last year and told John Mara, 'You can't win with this guy; you need to fire him,'" Barber said. "But that wouldn't have been the truth.

 

"I'm always going to tell the truth, whether you want to hear it or not."

 

The truth? John Mara says he wants players and fans to quit viewing Barber as a pariah, and to start remembering the player's vast contributions to the franchise on and off the field.

 

Tiki?

 

"I'll probably be extremely happy for my old teammates if they beat the Patriots," Barber said. "I'm a Giant."

 

A Giant who should've been invited to stand on his team's Super Bowl sideline.

 

A Giant who doesn't deserve to be the franchise's Public Enemy No. 1

 

[rphguy]

he had an opportunity to be standing on the giants sideline, but skipped the season.

[GreyHoodie]

Tiki is to the Giants what Shula is to the Patriots, an attention hungry jealous little gnat that doesn't know when to shut up and go away.

[BIGBLUE01]

Tiki says he doesn't deserve Giants' scorn

by Ian O'Connor

Affordable housing is his new cause, and not even a three-touchdown night against the 18-0 Patriots could top the feeling of putting a roof over a desperate family's heads. But this weekend — the weekend he could've been the 32-year-old star running back on a Giants team that will try to beat the unbeatable — Barber is putting his moral compass to rest.

 

He's focusing on football, and the NFC champion he left behind. Barber is scheduled to be in Glendale, courtesy of his employer, NBC, because the greatest offensive player in Giants history wants to observe a team that didn't invite him to watch.

 

"I'm Public Enemy No. 1 if you're with the Giants," Barber said. "With every heroic story there has to be a foil, and I'm convenient for that. I am the (expletive) foil in a Shakespearean play."

 

Over the phone, one can hear the boiling emotion rising from Tiki's toes. He sacrificed his body and soul for the Giants. At a generously listed 5-10 and 205 pounds, Barber rushed for 10,449 yards over 10 hard-knock seasons in the NFC East. He appeared in 154 out of a possible 160 regular-season games, and saved Tom Coughlin's job at the close of the 2006 season by running fearlessly with a broken thumb.

 

But Barber has been made an outcast by the Giants and their fans. His highlights on the Giants Stadium video board have been greeted by boos, and his absence has been widely credited as the reason the team bonded to win 10 consecutive road games and reach the biggest Sunday in sports.

 

Popular opinion says team chemistry improved when Tiki and his self-serving agenda marched side by side out the door. Of course, the people who advance this theory are quick to neglect the fact that Eli Manning is a much better quarterback this year than he was last year, and that the Giants — devastated by injury in '06 — have been relatively healthy this season.

 

Those people are also quick to forget that rookie general manager Jerry Reese, the first African-American GM in the Super Bowl, made all sorts of helpful additions to the roster, and that Reese would be among the team's many front-office officials who'd concede (on truth serum, anyway) that Barber would've given the Giants a far greater chance to upset the Patriots than they'll have without him.

 

"Love me or hate me or be indifferent about me, that doesn't bother me," Barber said. "But when you don't respect who I was as a player, that hurts ... For people to discredit what I was as a player is disingenuous at best and malicious at worst."

 

Teammates, coaches, fans and columnists have been all too willing to cite Barber as the ultimate addition-by-subtraction Giant. Never mind the fact that he sent his team to the playoffs, and saved Tom Coughlin's career, by rushing for a franchise-record 234 yards and three touchdowns against the Redskins in the final game of 2006.

 

Never mind that he gained 2,390 yards from scrimmage the year before, the second-highest total in NFL history.

 

Somehow, some way, the little back with the not-so-little mouth was cast as the Giant who was holding the franchise back.

 

"I tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it," Barber said. "If you want to vilify me for being honest, you have to hate me then."

Hate is a strong word, and not one the Giants use in public when describing their feelings for Barber. But a strong undercurrent of ill will runs through a locker room full of Giants who have convinced themselves they are better off without a star who was never afraid to rip Coughlin when he deserved to be ripped.

 

As a keen observer of human nature, Tiki has come to terms with the flawed reasons for the pariah treatment he's received. But for his closest advisers and friends, longtime rep Mark Lepselter among them, watching Barber's legacy get soiled has been a gut-wrenching experience.

 

Those friends want it known that Barber supported Coughlin in an exit interview last January, when team president John Mara was seriously weighing the possibility of firing the coach. Mara confirmed that Barber was among five or six veterans who advised him that Coughlin should be retained.

 

"Keep him, John," Barber told Mara in the team president's office the day after the Giants suffered their wild-card loss to the Eagles. "I think he's a great coach and I give him immense credit for helping me as a player, John. But he didn't treat us the right way. As a 31-year-old player and a 10-year vet, he rubbed me the wrong way.

 

"But John, I think he's changing. I think he can be the guy who gets this team going in the right direction."

 

Barber and Coughlin had come a long way in three years.

 

Coughlin and the running backs coach, Jerald Ingram, had reinvigorated Barber's career by changing the way he carried the ball and making his fumbling problems disappear.

 

Tiki appreciated the tip. He didn't appreciate Coughlin's draconian approach to practice.

 

"I didn't like how Tom treated me as a player," Barber said. "As a person, he was great asking about my wife and kids. Tom was unbelievably good that way. But once I got into a football environment, that person completely disappeared. He was completely controlling. He was like, 'Don't look at me. What are you looking at? Don't show me any sign of disrespect.' I just felt that was the wrong way to go about it."

 

 

Tiki Barber can't believe the Giants and their fans have forgotten what he did on the field over his final three seasons. (Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)

 

Barber and Coughlin forged a temporary peace on Sundays, when Tiki wanted the ball and Tom gave it to him.

 

"People assume we had this I-hate-you relationship, and it wasn't like that," Barber said. "On Sundays, I was right there beside (Coughlin). Stood right next to him for every national anthem. I was with my coach on game day.

 

"My problems with him came during the week. 'Tiki, I need you out here practicing full speed, not half speed.' And I felt like, 'Coach, I just rushed for 160 yards, I'm 31, I feel like (expletive), and I've got a broken bone in my hand.' I didn't miss a single practice under Tom. Not one. Zero."

 

Their bond of trust suffered its first compound fracture in the playoffs following the 2005 season, after the Giants went down 23-0 at home to a Panthers team coached by former Giants defensive coordinator John Fox. Barber had run with a vengeance all year to honor the memories of co-owners Wellington Mara and Bob Tisch, who had died during the season.

 

"All season Coach Coughlin kept saying, 'We are the team of record for Wellington Mara and Bob Tisch,'" Barber said. "So that season took on almost a divine meaning for me ... and then we laid an egg in our own stadium.

 

"It was like crashing down in a way that really changed me ... I wanted everyone in that room to know we were the team of record for Wellington and Bob and we were (expletive) for that game.

 

"Tom didn't say it, so I said it for him."

 

Into a live microphone, Tiki said the Giants were outcoached. Coughlin probably didn't forgive, and definitely didn't forget.

 

Fast forward to the 2007 preseason, long after Barber had used his first day at NBC to declare that Coughlin's old school approach had snuffed out his desire to play. Tiki widened the gap between his world and the Giants' by doing what he was being paid by Dick Ebersol to do: give his honest opinion.

 

And his honest opinion of Eli Manning's skill set as a leader wasn't very neighborly.

 

"Last year I told Eli, 'Look, you've got to get up and start talking and be a vocal leader," Barber said. "I handed those duties to him. So middle of the season, he gets up and he's never done this before. I'm there, all the old veteran personalities are there. And this insecure guy with a little voice starts trying to yell at us and motivate us.

 

"It was funny. It was comical, but I didn't say it (on TV) in any malicious way. It was literally lost in translation. I'm sure I sounded the same way Eli did when I first did that. And then it's presented to Eli like, 'Did you hear Tiki called you a comical leader?' I called Eli the next day and left him a message. I told him, "It wasn't in context. Maybe I used the wrong word and I'm sorry if it offended you. You know I know you're a good leader.' But Eli never called me back."

 

The gap between former star and former employer widened like never before. Manning actually fired back on Barber, showing an honest-to-God pulse for the first time.

 

The Giants recovered from a slow start to deliver a season touched by stardust, and Barber lost himself in his promising TV career and a project that would have a far more profound impact on society than a 60-yard run to paydirt.

 

"I simply didn't want to play football anymore," Barber said. "I just didn't want to keep getting beat up ... I got out before the game kicked me out."

 

Barber did NBC stories on soccer-playing refugees from war-torn nations, and he invested in a project designed to construct and refurbish homes for low-income families.

 

"Work like that," Barber said, "is absolutely more rewarding than playing football, which isn't fulfilling in a long-lasting way. When you impact a disadvantaged kid's life, that's lasting forever."

 

Barber's work has shielded him from some of the big blue daggers sent spinning his way. But in the end, he's well aware of the cruel storyline getting wide national play.

 

The Giants are better off without Tiki, better off without a back who rushed for 1,518 yards, 1,860 yards and 1,662 yards in his three years under Coughlin before retiring at the top of his game.

 

"I know for a fact how I played and what I stood for," Barber said. "History will judge me favorably."

 

History will also be kind to the Giants. Manning has arrived as a quarterback, and Coughlin has reinvented himself as a semi-approachable coach who has a leadership council of veteran players policing the locker room.

 

"I could have gone in there after last year and told John Mara, 'You can't win with this guy; you need to fire him,'" Barber said. "But that wouldn't have been the truth.

 

"I'm always going to tell the truth, whether you want to hear it or not."

 

The truth? John Mara says he wants players and fans to quit viewing Barber as a pariah, and to start remembering the player's vast contributions to the franchise on and off the field.

 

Tiki?

 

"I'll probably be extremely happy for my old teammates if they beat the Patriots," Barber said. "I'm a Giant."

 

A Giant who should've been invited to stand on his team's Super Bowl sideline.

 

A Giant who doesn't deserve to be the franchise's Public Enemy No. 1

 

Good read. Thanks for everything Tiki, but we're fine w/o you.

[Lubeck]

Good read. Thanks for everything Tiki, but we're fine w/o you.

 

Don't do that man, quote a multi-paragraph post. More unnecessary scrolling.

 

This is how I view it: Tiki was a great player. He was a bit loose with the mouth, but at the time I agreed with him.

 

I understand that as soon as he retired and took on a job with NBC he was being paid to be an NFL analyst, not a Giants spokesperson. But the maliciousness that he showed towards TC and Eli....it was overboard. That is what I personally and I think many other Giants fans are really disappointed with. The way in which he characterized the two....unnecessary. That is what has ticked off a lot of people.

 

I know I am wrong, but as a fan if a player has spent his entire career with one team and done amazing things with that one team, then that player should respect the team. His comments did not show respect at all.

[xxi-xxv]

It amazes me, the Giants are in the Super Bowl. There are some nice young players on this team, some young veterans have stepped up their play and as leaders and yet here we are still reading things about Tiki Barber. Amazing to me. Its time for everyone(reporters in particular) to just let this go.

[BIGBLUE01]

Don't do that man, quote a multi-paragraph post. More unnecessary scrolling.

 

This is how I view it: Tiki was a great player. He was a bit loose with the mouth, but at the time I agreed with him.

 

I understand that as soon as he retired and took on a job with NBC he was being paid to be an NFL analyst, not a Giants spokesperson. But the maliciousness that he showed towards TC and Eli....it was overboard. That is what I personally and I think many other Giants fans are really disappointed with. The way in which he characterized the two....unnecessary. That is what has ticked off a lot of people.

 

I know I am wrong, but as a fan if a player has spent his entire career with one team and done amazing things with that one team, then that player should respect the team. His comments did not show respect at all.

 

True, my bad.

[gateb]

"It was funny. It was comical, but I didn't say it (on TV) in any malicious way. It was literally lost in translation. I'm sure I sounded the same way Eli did when I first did that. And then it's presented to Eli like, 'Did you hear Tiki called you a comical leader?' I called Eli the next day and left him a message. I told him, "It wasn't in context. Maybe I used the wrong word and I'm sorry if it offended you. You know I know you're a good leader.' But Eli never called me back."

 

This gets at me. Eli responded to Tiki after tiki took a shot at him on NBC. But some do not know, Tiki took another shot at Eli on his Barber radio show with Ronde. Him and Ronde were mocking Eli. Making fun of his voice, piling on him.

 

You're not the victim Tiki, sorry. You're record speaks for itself. Ask Strahan.

[GreyHoodie]

Don't do that man, quote a multi-paragraph post. More unnecessary scrolling.

 

This is how I view it: Tiki was a great player. He was a bit loose with the mouth, but at the time I agreed with him.

 

I understand that as soon as he retired and took on a job with NBC he was being paid to be an NFL analyst, not a Giants spokesperson. But the maliciousness that he showed towards TC and Eli....it was overboard. That is what I personally and I think many other Giants fans are really disappointed with. The way in which he characterized the two....unnecessary. That is what has ticked off a lot of people.

 

I know I am wrong, but as a fan if a player has spent his entire career with one team and done amazing things with that one team, then that player should respect the team. His comments did not show respect at all.

 

There is some middle ground between being a total homer, like Dan "I predicting the Dolphins to upset the 14-0 Patriots" Marino and Tiki "The Giants will never win a game without me" Barber.

[Lubeck]

There is some middle ground between being a total homer, like Dan "I predicting the Dolphins to upset the 14-0 Patriots" Marino and Tiki "The Giants will never win a game without me" Barber.

 

It is called Phil Simms, one of the greatest athlete gamecallers around. Helps he rarely if ever calls a Giants game of course.

[jerseygiantfan]

It's called Tiki is an attention whore. He's jealous and that's it. We already forgot you, now go announce something somewhere else.

[Sephiroth]

Um... "soil his career as a football player?"

 

Show me ONE article where it says "Tiki Barber sucked as an NFL RB."

 

This article is a total Straw Man. No one has ever said Barber wasn't good or didn't carry the Giants O on his back for years... they say he's a self-serving bigmouth, and said stupid things... which he does AGAIN in this article.

 

Won't this guy just EVER go away?

[Nas]

Don't do that man, quote a multi-paragraph post. More unnecessary scrolling.

 

This is how I view it: Tiki was a great player. He was a bit loose with the mouth, but at the time I agreed with him.

 

I understand that as soon as he retired and took on a job with NBC he was being paid to be an NFL analyst, not a Giants spokesperson. But the maliciousness that he showed towards TC and Eli....it was overboard. That is what I personally and I think many other Giants fans are really disappointed with. The way in which he characterized the two....unnecessary. That is what has ticked off a lot of people.

 

I know I am wrong, but as a fan if a player has spent his entire career with one team and done amazing things with that one team, then that player should respect the team. His comments did not show respect at all.

 

This summerizes my feelings about this.. perfectly. Thanks Lube.

[BIGBLUE01]

This summerizes my feelings about this.. perfectly. Thanks Lube.

 

Sorry Nas, I wont quote a multiparagraph post again.

[xxi-xxv]

After spending the season each week listening to that god awful Barbershop show I must say that Rhonde is the bigger asshole, They sort of play good cop bad cop with Rhonde as the bad cop in this whole Tiki/Giants thing. 2 very successful and smart guys, but very full of themselves while at it.

[rphguy]

This summerizes my feelings about this.. perfectly. Thanks Lube.

please don't make me waste my time reading a "piling on" post.

[boohyah]

First off, I apologize to Lubeck's index finger as it must be tired from scrolling his blackberry. . I should have just linked it.

 

here's how I feel. I don't like how people can't seperate what Tiki did as a player as opposed to what he's doing now. And I think he's been pretty shitty at times this year to the team. His book was self serving. It's been all about Tiki.

 

But fact is, here's a guy who like him or not was pretty much our offense the last few years. When he bad mouthed Coughlin while playing he said stuff that others thought. Read the Giants.com article on Coughlin, read Accorsi's book. Strahan said he didn't want to play for him. Perhaps if Tiki had seen some of that side of Coughlin the players are seeing now, then maybe he still plays for us. And enough of the nonsense about us being a better team this year without him, it's merely coincidence, like the whole "we're better without Shockey demanding the ball".

 

Fact is right now, have we ever seen a more positive light on this team since 1990, not even 2000 was it like this. More positive press than ever, players having fun, our defensive co-ordinator is a hot coach, Coughlin is suddenly a great guy, Eli is a stud. They are inviting back other Giants to be on the sidelines, how good would they look if they just said, hey Tiki, come stand on the sidelines. They could make him choke on his words some and at the same time look like the bigger person(or team).

[Nas]

Sorry Nas, I wont quote a multiparagraph post again.

 

LOL..

[Allstarjim]

First off, I apologize to Lubeck's index finger as it must be tired from scrolling his blackberry. . I should have just linked it.

 

here's how I feel. I don't like how people can't seperate what Tiki did as a player as opposed to what he's doing now. And I think he's been pretty shitty at times this year to the team. His book was self serving. It's been all about Tiki.

 

But fact is, here's a guy who like him or not was pretty much our offense the last few years. When he bad mouthed Coughlin while playing he said stuff that others thought. Read the Giants.com article on Coughlin, read Accorsi's book. Strahan said he didn't want to play for him. Perhaps if Tiki had seen some of that side of Coughlin the players are seeing now, then maybe he still plays for us. And enough of the nonsense about us being a better team this year without him, it's merely coincidence, like the whole "we're better without Shockey demanding the ball".

 

Fact is right now, have we ever seen a more positive light on this team since 1990, not even 2000 was it like this. More positive press than ever, players having fun, our defensive co-ordinator is a hot coach, Coughlin is suddenly a great guy, Eli is a stud. They are inviting back other Giants to be on the sidelines, how good would they look if they just said, hey Tiki, come stand on the sidelines. They could make him choke on his words some and at the same time look like the bigger person(or team).

 

I can agree with this. Tiki should've been invited. And the fact that he went to bat for Coughlin should say a lot about him to Tiki haters.

[Lubeck]

I can agree with this. Tiki should've been invited. And the fact that he went to bat for Coughlin should say a lot about him to Tiki haters.

 

Yeah it says "Now that TC is a SB coach well of course I supported him."

[echochamber]

Is that a real article or from the Onion? If its real, damn he's a jealous tart. I love it.

[boohyah]

Is that a real article or from the Onion? If its real, damn he's a jealous tart. I love it.

 

It's real.

[mickeef2]

This article is like the Roger Clemens press conference. It's supposed to vindicate Tiki, or cast a different light on the situation, and it fails miserably. Nobody has said Tiki wasn't a great contributor to the Giants while he was here. He is one of the greatest Giants of all-time. But Giant fans are a savvy and protective bunch. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that almost none of his former teammates came to his defense, even though he was a great player- very odd in NFL circles. He also said, over the airwaves, what a joke Eli was in the locker room. Real nice. I understand his job is now to report on the NFL, but when was the last time you heard a former-player-now-reporter divulge information like this that was intended to embarrass a former teammate? And a guy, no less, who had done nothing his whole career but take the heat with class and dignity?

 

And don't believe the hype about Tiki saving Coughlin's job. The story goes that the guy who first reported that (the same Tiki-worshipper that wrote this article, I believe), wouldn't or couldn't verify that Tiki actually did that. He had reported it to sound like that's the way it happened, and some news sources ran with it.

[Lubeck]

And don't believe the hype about Tiki saving Coughlin's job. The story goes that the guy who first reported that (the same Tiki-worshipper that wrote this article, I believe), wouldn't or couldn't verify that Tiki actually did that. He had reported it to sound like that's the way it happened, and some news sources ran with it.

 

That part of the story only makes me dislike Tiki for who he is as a person more than ever. I will never discredit what he did on the field and how he was a key part perhaps even the most important in keeping the Giants relevant for a few seasons.

 

But Tiki helped save Coughlins job? The guy who he says in his book was the main #1 reason he retired early? Why would Tiki have tried to save TC if TC was the reason he was leaving?

[BIGBLUE01]

That part of the story only makes me dislike Tiki for who he is as a person more than ever. I will never discredit what he did on the field and how he was a key part perhaps even the most important in keeping the Giants relevant for a few seasons.

 

But Tiki helped save Coughlins job? The guy who he says in his book was the main #1 reason he retired early? Why would Tiki have tried to save TC if TC was the reason he was leaving?

 

And the fact that Coughlin wasnt a lock to be around next yr during this season, makes me wonder how he saved his job. They were gonna can him this year if he didnt produce, and Tiki wasnt around.