He screamed at his head coach and angrily slapped one of the best players on his own team so hard in the back of the helmet it nearly sent him to one of those NFL concussion specialists for a baseline examination.
Yet Ahmad Bradshaw is revered as one of the most meaningful emotional leaders inside the Giants’ locker room.
Bradshaw is a fire-starter for the Giants, perhaps the next most critical cog in the offensive engine to Eli Manning. He is 214 pounds of pure energy that his teammates feed off of like caffeine in the morning.
Perhaps this is why, one day after two public outbursts on the field that might otherwise have rubbed people the wrong way, Bradshaw was actually lauded by the two men whose grills he got into on Sunday.
Even noted disciplinarian Tom Coughlin, whom Bradshaw yelled at on the sideline, imploring him to call more running plays late in the third quarter of the Giants’ exhilarating 27-23 comeback victory over the Redskins, could not muster a harsh word for his demonstrative running back yesterday.
“You like to have everyone play as hard as he does, honestly,’’ Coughlin said. “There has never been any question about Ahmad Bradshaw’s toughness or his intensity level. You want people to recognize that fact, but sometimes you do have to control yourself and control your emotions, and that’s something he’s working on.’’
Bradshaw obviously was not working on that aspect of his game when he was tackled at the end of a 15-yard, third-quarter run he felt should have gone for much more had it not been for a missed block by receiver Victor Cruz. After the play, Bradshaw got up from the turf and slapped Cruz so hard in the back of the helmet it would have drawn a 15-yard personal-foul penalty had it been an opposing player he struck.
“Yeah, it didn’t tickle, to say the least,’’ Cruz said yesterday. “He wants the best out of everyone. On that specific play he felt like I could’ve done more. I agree with him and we hugged it out later on. It’s cool.
“He’s the pulse of the offense sometimes. We understand what kind of person Ahmad is and we understand he’s emotional and he wears his heart on his sleeve. Obviously, from the outside looking in it looks a little iffy, but all that matters is what we think about him in this locker room.’’
The support of Bradshaw from his teammates is universal. They love him for who he is — a bundle of raw, sometimes unbridled, emotion.
“He’s like that in the locker room, he’s like that at breakfast, he’s like that at dinner, he’s like that in the shower, he’s like that in the steam room, he’s like that in the training room,’’ tight end Martellus Bennett said. “Ahmad is just an intense person. That’s why we love him. The way he plays on the field is the same way he is as a person.
“I don’t know a good adjective to describe Ahmad, but if Ahmad was an adjective, people would be like, ‘I’m Ahmad-ing it.’ ’’
Safety Antrel Rolle said he’ll “take Ahmad’s passion every day of the week.’’
“Hey, if I’m going to a fight, I’m taking Ahmad with me,’’ Rolle said. “I love that guy. I love his passion. I love the attitude he brings to a game. He’s a very emotional player; he wears it on his sleeve and I back him 100 percent. We live or die with Ahmad.’’
Rolle called the Bradshaw love tap to Cruz’s helmet “friendly fire,’’ adding, “I know he doesn’t mean any harm. He’s never been a disturbance to this team. You have to be honest with each other. We’re all brothers in this locker room and everyone knows brothers fight and get into it.’’
Bradshaw said his sideline chat with Coughlin was “a lot of emotions kicking in’’ and that Coughlin “is animated just like I am.’’
Bradshaw said his goal is to help motivate his teammates.
“When we need it, I try to hype us up as much as possible,’’ he said.
“He tries his best to rub off on everybody and he does,’’ Bennett said. “We have a lot of leaders here and he’s a leader. He’s not [President] Obama, but he’s a leader.’’