Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Tiki Barber, A Lesson In Humility

Tiki Barber
How does it feel to be alone, by your doing?
I never thought this headline would come across the sports world ever in a million years – Tiki Barber announces plans to return to the National Football League. He'll be a 36 year old running back who retired prematurely in the first place to pursue a career in broadcasting, an utter failure mind you, that thinks he can really help out an NFL team four years removed? Please Tiki, spare us.                                   

As a Giants fan, I rode the rollercoaster that is now Tiki Barbers life (which is now a shade worse than Charlie Sheen, who at least is still popular, but I digress). When we drafted him in 1997, I thought he was too small and not the right fit but as he started to rise and become a premier running back in the league, like all fans, my love for him grew. But then, at the height of his success and midway through a season in which we were 6-2, Tiki announced out of nowhere that he would retire. The Giants promptly went 2-6 the rest of the way and that was only the beginning.

My disgust for him now is endless, but before I get to the downfall, let’s start with the things that led to Giants fans love of Tiki, which at the time was totally justifiable.

Here’s a man who was accomplishing things on the football field a running back of his small frame (5’9” 200 pounds soaking wet) and stature had never done before. After his first two seasons were pretty terrible and injury riddled, Tiki exploded on the scene in 1999 with 1639 all-purpose yards and supplanted himself as a dangerous playmaker in the open field. One year later, he recorded the first of six 1,000 yard rushing seasons with 1,041 yards and added 719 receiving yards and low and behold was an integral part to the Giants making Super Bowl XXXV. The Giants awarded him with a six year contract and after that season and how could we not? Tiki Barber was a superstar.

tiki_barber
Barber doing what he did best, should never have left
Leading up to the drafting of Eli Manning, the Giants had some bad seasons following their Super Bowl appearance but Tiki Barber was our highlight show, and worth the price of admission. From 2002 until his final year, Tiki improved in so many facets of the game was the type of running back that could do it all, a la Marshall Faulk. He was a three time pro-bowler from 05’-07’, led the NFL in yards from scrimmage in 04’-05’, was the first player in NFL history with 1,800 rushing yards and 500 receiving yards in one season, became one of three players in NFL history with at least three 200-yard rushing games in a season in 2005 (O.J. Simpson and Earl Campbell were the other two) and became the third player in NFL history to gain more than 10,000 rushing yards and 5,000 receiving yards in a NFL career, joining Marshall Faulk and Marcus Allen. Not mention that he holds numerous team records for running and receiving, what Giants fan could forget his performance in a 2005 week 8 game against the Washington Redskins? He promised an ailing Wellington Mara that we would win and when Mara passed two days prior, Tiki torched the rival Skins for 206 yards in a 36-0 rout.

That’s some pretty good company that Tiki Barber was running with. Had he never retired and played a few more years, was a part of the 2007 Super Bowl winning Giants, he could easily have made the a Hall of Fame at some point in the future. He showed class with how he played and who didn't love his kisses after each touchdown, Tiki we felt them!

But I guess he decided the Hall of Infamy was a better fit, all by his own doing.

Looking back, Tiki’s troubles probably started before 2006. Most Giants fans knew Tiki had a love of broadcasting as him and his brother Ronde hosted their own sports talk show The Barber Shop on satellite radio. Not that this is a bad thing, but they were current players talking about coworkers live on the air, during the season. Sports talk radio success is usually attributed to your ability to create controversy and Tiki started doing that early in that career. The first strike was in 2002 when he publicly criticized fellow Giants superstar teammate Michael Strahan during his contract dispute. He called him greedy and that by all accounts was a bad idea. After that whole fiasco, you’d think Tiki would have realized then that those problems need to stay in house, in the locker room but this seemed to start the decline of Tiki Barber.

Tiki Barber
Bout all that will make the Hall of Fame for you
Fast forward to 2006. The Giants are 6-2 now after a 1-2 start and seem primed for a Super Bowl run but Tiki Barber decides, midseason and publicly announce that he’ll retire, with two years left on his contract. It was a shocking blow to not only the fans, but ownership, coaching staff and obviously the players. We finished 8-8 and lost to the Eagles in the first round of the playoffs.

During that season though, after he announced his retirement and knew he wouldn’t be with the team any more, he reverted back to his 2002 days by publically criticizing Giants coach Tom Coughlin after a loss to Jacksonville saying that he abandoned the run to early. Was he right? Maybe, but again Tiki, keep that in house. Either way, though he was retiring and obviously was ready to broadcast by broadcasting his opinions any chance he had.

I still wasn’t ready to denounce Tiki Barber at the time, who is anyone to tell someone what to do with their lives and how they should live it. He obviously had a passion to get into broadcasting and felt the wear and tear of each passing NFL season was too much for him and he always seemed like a guy who didn’t care about his career legacy or statistical accumulation. So despite causing chaos for our organization and being a factor of that season’s demise, best of luck to you Tiki, we’ll miss you.

But did we ever expect what was to come? Not a chance.

Tiki then exploded on the broadcasting scene with a spot on NBC’s Today Show and NBC’s Sunday Night Football in America. He decided that he needed to be controversial to boot and figured why not bash his former team? The team that helped pave the way for his on field and off field success anyway, our New York Giants.

Right after his retirement he went after both Head Coach Coughlin and Quarterback Eli Manning. Saying of his former coach, "(Coughlin) pushed me in the direction (of television)," said Barber. "I don't know if you realize this, but we were in full pads for 17 weeks, and with the amount of injuries that we had, it just takes a toll on you. You physically don't want to be out there, when your body feels the way you do, in full pads." And of his former quarterback Manning's motivational pre-game speeches sounded "almost comical."
Really Tiki? You’re not even weeks removed from your career and you’re going to bash the team and the fans who wished you nothing but the best despite feeling a little depressed by your leaving too early? Shame on you. 

Your comments toward Coughlin were ridiculous anyway because hey buddy, being in football pads during practice seems like a perfect way to practice and you never said before your retirement that Coughlin was pushing you to broadcasting either. You were well into a broadcasting career long before you retired, so spare us on that. Then to say what you said about Eli was just uncalled for. Why try and degrade a team of guys that fought for you the way you did?

Most of your teammates disliked your actions and here's former Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce reflecting on Tiki’s last season and him running his mouth on ESPN’s NFL Live…



The silver lining of all this, to Tiki’s dismay, was that same coach, quarterback and team went on to win Super Bowl XLII the very next season…without YOU.

Those acts alone by Tiki were enough for me to end my love for him and take him off my list of Giants players I admire. To do what he did was a conscience decision and unwarranted in my eyes. Now, I will not deny the fact that Tiki is an intelligent man, but his arrogance cost him the love of the fans of his former team, but that hubris also cost him much more.

Tiki Barber w/ wife
Was she worth ruining this?
In June of 2010, Tiki Barber ended his marriage of 11 years with his wife while she was 8 months pregnant with twins due to an affair with a 23 year old NBC intern. That right there is pretty scummy to me. You had two kids already, two more on the way but thought you were so invincible and on top of the world that you could get away with cheating on your wife. If you feel the need to cheat, then be a man and ask your wife for a divorce at the very least. Now, a messy divorce that’s left you unemployed and in need of cash has brought you back to the game you abandoned for better things.

I’m sorry Tiki, but to hear that this return is to try and live out a dream of playing once again with your brother is ridiculous. You retired because of the toll it took on your body and at 36 you all of a sudden don’t care about that? We all know that this is solely a monetary decision because you feel you have no other options.

Here’s a lesson, don’t burn bridges in the first place. Tiki Barber should have been a revered retired New York Giant and someone, who unlike 78% of the NFL who end up broke after football, finds super success afterwards, but it’s not. The sad thing about it all is that Tiki Barber consciously made the choices he did that led him to this situation in the first place. Unlike a former Giant great Lawrence Taylor who at least has drugs to blame for his failure at life, you only had arrogance. You Tiki, decided to ruin your legacy with the Giants by verbally assaulting players and coaches and you Tiki, ended your broadcasting career and marriage by deciding to sleep around with a 23 year old intern. You did these things consciously and for that I have no pity.

I believe in second chances and if a team is willing to take you on then by all means go for it, but I certainly won’t be wishing you all the best. Tiki Barber for all intensive purposes is dead to me.

I actually do hope we get a chance to face him if there even is a 2011 NFL season.

-BurL

What a JOKE!
TIki barber

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