Tiki Barber: "Mean People Suck"

Mean old Tom Coughlin didn't let Tiki-weekie have any funny-wunny, so Tiki took his ball and went home.
So I'm supposed to feel bad for Tiki Barber. Is that it? I'm supposed to have compassion for Tiki because he played 10 years in the NFL, never suffered a career threatening injury, lives the high-life in New York Fucking City and spent his offseasons turning down more money than I'll ever make in my entire life? Well maybe you can tell by my tone (if that can be picked up in the written word) but I don't feel bad for him in the least. Instead, it's even clearer to me that he doesn't get it and he'll never get it.

A couple weeks ago I wrote that Tiki's controversial comments about Eli were a contrived attempt by him to blast onto the sports talk scene and separate himself from his good guy image. With the today's report of more controversial comments about the Giants ahead in Tiki's new book coming to light, that feeling is generally reinforced. But that's not why I want to write this. I could basically just replace Tom Coughlin's name for Eli's name in my previous piece and reprint it. The reason I'm writing this is that aside from contriving this whole angry at the Giants schtick in an attempt to make himself somehow half-interesting, Tiki really thinks that his new story about why he left the league is a compelling one. He wants to win back the fans who felt he quit on them. So NOW he blames someone other than himself (remember the first time he explained his retirement it was because he didn't want to get injured). So it's Tom Coughlin's fault that Tiki retired. Because of Coughlin's unpopularity amongst fans, Tiki felt this would be well received and those that blamed Tiki for being a pussy would now blame Coughlin. But that's not what's going to happen because this reason is worse than Tiki's earlier one.

You see Tiki, people can understand if you were breaking down (even if you didn't show it on the field) and were concerned about sustaining a debilitating injury. Some people won't, but reasonable people can probably get that notion through their heads. But when you start making other excuses (citing the Giants lack of leadership from the front office to the QB, then citing your fear of injury and then blaming the coach) for why you retired, you start to lose credibility. And beyond that, the people that were going to hate you for ditching the Giants for your fear of injury aren't going to change their minds because you thought coach Coughlin was too tough on you in practice and NOW THAT'S the reason you retired. In fact, it actually sounds worse now. Before you were a pussy because you didn't want to get hurt. Now you're a pussy who couldn't deal with a coach who didn't coddle you. And what sucks the most is that you hung the Giants out to dry. Their best player (you) retired on them after arguably his best season. That team has no chance and it's partly your fault. It's not like the team is going to get it in gear or fire Coughlin because of your comments. So ripping them after the fact isn't really helping anyone. And despite what you think, these controversies you're stirring up aren't even helping you.

You say that Tom Coughlin robbed you of the joy of football and that's why you retired. Really? Well if the joy of the Giants 2007 season wasn't robbed from the fans because of the pre-mature retirement of their best player, he's doing a hell of a job trying to rob the rest of the positivity of the start of the season from the fans by continually making the 2007 Giants about Tiki Barber and his vicious self-promoting at the expense of anyone ever associated with the Giants organization.