Tiki Barber needs your attention
Apparently Tiki Barber has a new book coming out, one in which he rips Tom Coughlin for essentially forcing him into retirement:
“[Coughlin] robbed me of what had been one of the most important things I had in my life, which was the joy I felt playing football,” Barber writes in excerpts printed in the newspaper.
Barber credits Coughlin for curing a fumbling problem, but he believes his performances helped Coughlin retain his job. Barber also accuses the Giants of underpaying him by $10 million over the course of his career. The running back was one of the NFL’s top-five rushers each of the past three seasons.
Anybody else sick and tired of Tiki Barber yet? Seriously, this guy is trying to do whatever he can to stay in the limelight since retiring last season (actually, since retiring in the middle of last season). Let’s see, nobody is paying attention to me, so I’ll criticize Eli Manning for not being a leader and once that dies down, I’ll introduce my new book and make sure to blame Coughlin for why I retired prematurely. And if that’s not enough, I’ll use the tired old act of claiming I was underpaid. You were a great player Tiki – this isn’t the right way to go about trying to drum up attention for your new career.
Yeah, you’d think at this point he’d just put his head down and do his job. The sports media needs intelligent, articulate announcers, and Tiki seems to have all the tools.
Not exactly a way to get your jersey retired, eh? Tiki’s act is getting old fast. He doesn’t need to bring this kind of attention to himself, he did that already when he and his agent “leaked” that he was retiring during last season. For some reason he thinks people are falling all over themselves to hear or read what he has to say but I just don’t see it. And if he’s going to do a “tell all” book, players and coaches certainly won’t trust him to keep his sources confidential as a journalist.
As a life-long Giants fan, I’m disappointed in him. I thought Tiki had more class than to make fun of Eli behind his back. Maybe he should have been more of a leader as a player and try to help the young QB grow into that leadership roll rather than be so self-centered. Not to mention so weak that he would blame the coach for his decision to retire because he was too tough. Maybe that’s what he needed all along because his play certainly improved after Coughlin arrived.