Tiki Barber sounded off on his radio show “The Barber Shop” about his critics who have blasted his plan to retire at the end of the 2006 season.
In the line of Barber’s verbal fire was: New York Post writer Gary Myers, who called Barber’s retirement talk “a season long distraction” that the Giants “don’t need”; ESPN talking head Tom Jackson who also said Barber was a distraction; and ESPN analyst Michael Irvin who said Barber wasn’t retiring, but “quitting”.
“…I will call them idiots, because they have neither spoken to me, nor any one of my teammates or any of my coaches,” Barber said. “Yet all they do is criticize me for being a distraction with this retirement thing.”
“And that includes Gary Myers,” he said. “That includes Tom Jackson on ESPN. That includes the ultimate character guy, facetiously speaking of course, Michael Irvin. Please get a clue on how to be a journalist.
“Don’t make blanket assumptions about it [retirement]. And obviously, as was evidenced [Monday] night, I am a huge distraction to the New York Giants,” he said.
Good for Barber – especially on his comments about Irvin. How big of a distraction was that guy for his entire career in Dallas? The guy was such a model citizen that he was cheered off of the Veteran Stadium carpet (by Eagles fans who hated him) after almost being paralyzed.
Why is Barber a “quitter”, because he has other interests outside of football? I agree that his comments would have been a bit better at the end of the year. But if the guy feels like his career is coming to a close, why keep something like that secret for eight-plus weeks?
