Don't expect Tom Coughlin to send Tiki Barber a Valentine's day card. Coughlin's workhorse of the last three years had some tough words for his former coach upon being announced as a new member of the Today show. Barber believes that Coughlin's demanding practices took an excessive toll on his body and ultimately caused him to retire prematurely. While undoubtedly he will go down as one of the greatest Giants in history, as a die-hard fan, I'm begging Barber to stop with the disparaging remarks. Nothing can ever tarnish his legacy in Blue, but he's doing his best to alienate loyal fans.
As I've discussed in the past, Tiki's focus on life after football while still playing didn't sit well with many fans. We all understand he's articulate, intelligent, and well-suited for his post-football career. But he's decided to take a page out of Jerome Bettis' playbook. A year ago the Steelers great had an emotional farewell tour with a storybook ending. Very shortly after, he began speculating on his coach's future and rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. It's unfortunate that these stars feel such a desire to quickly acclimate themselves to their new professions that they step on the toes of the people who helped make their previous careers such a success. Now I am by no means an ardent Tom Coughlin supporter, and if you read the statements thoroughly they're not quite as malicious as headlines would suggest, but there's no reason for these parting shots. Hopefully Barber does not feel the need to create bad blood with an organization that treated him so well for 10 years and put him in a position to chase dreams of being alongside his hero Matt Lauer.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment