Tiki Barber isn’t coming back to the Giants and there’s very little chance Plaxico Burress is, either. But if one of them would ever again don a Giants uniform, Eli Manning believes Burress would be accepted back more readily than Barber.
“Probably Plaxico just because he has probably fonder memories of winning a Super Bowl and that catch for the touchdown in Super Bowl XLII,” Manning said yesterday on the Dan Patrick Show. “Tiki ended on a bad note and it’s really a shame, he should be remembered as a great Giants running back and a terrific player, because he was. Just kind of the way he went out and burned a few bridges with the fans and kind of went after me a little bit, it’s unfortunate. I’m not happy about it in that sense, so I think Plaxico would probably be welcomed back a little quicker.”
It was a critique by Barber not long after the running back left the Giants to serve as an NBC analyst that sparked Manning to respond in a very un-Eli-like manner.
Barber said Manning’s attempts at leadership early in his career at times were “comical” and Manning shot back that Barber announcing his retirement from football at midseason caused an unnecessary distraction, a jab that raised Manning’s profile with his older teammates.
“When I kind of responded, I think guys kind of liked to see that from me, since I’ve always been kind of pretty quiet and never really tried to create any controversy,” Manning recalled of his comments about Barber prior to the 2007 season. “I just felt this was a little bit different. This wasn’t a media guy or a reporter attacking me, this was a teammate kind of coming after me.
“I didn’t want [it] to be a deal where it’s me versus Tiki, it’s back and forth where we do a sit-down interview about it . . . but I couldn’t sit there and do nothing.”
Doing slightly more than nothing has been a way of life for Manning and all other NFL players during the lockout and Manning fears the time lost is already too much for young players to make up.
“That’s kind of one of my biggest concerns, the rookies, and even the guys who are going into that second year,” Manning said. “The rookies, it’s almost going to be like a red-shirt year for them just because they’re going to come in whenever we get back to training camp and everything’s going to be brand new for them.”
Manning worked for a few days this spring with Jerrel Jernigan, a rookie receiver taken in the third round of the NFL Draft and it was enough time for the veteran quarterback to realize the lockout has had a negative effect.
“We’re talking plays and concepts, different reads that he has,” Manning said, “and the second day he’s kind of looking at me and he goes ‘Can I just get the formations? Can you draw some formations for me?’ He’s just trying to figure out where to line up. They don’t have any meeting time to learn some things, to sit down with the coach and sit down with the players and pick a few things to work on.”