Should the Giants Bring Tiki Barber back?

As many of you already know, former Giants great Tiki Barber is considering coming out of retirement. He currently ranks 1st in franchise history with most career rushing yards and only trails Amani Toomer in receiving yards. With that, he's been a cancer in the locker room since 2005. In the beginning of 2006, he announced his retirement and he did not act like part of the team that season. Sure he finished with an impressive 1662 rushing yards, but constantly bashed the coach and still will not shut up about how Tom Coughlin supposedly does not know how to coach even right before inducted into the Giants Ring of Honor.

So why on earth would the Giants bring him back now that Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw combined for over 2,000 yards last season? It's simple. If Barber can act like one of the guys, and teaches Bradshaw to hold onto the football, he can be a true asset. After all, Barber struggled with fumbles the majority of his career, fumbling 35 times over a 4-year span before Tom Coughlin (yes the same Coughlin that Barber has fun bashing) saved his career by changing how Barber throws the football, and only fumbled the ball 9 times in his last 3 seasons. If Barber can help Bradshaw out, then I'll welcome him to the team.

Would I be worried about Barber dividing up the locker room? Yeah, a little bit. Then again, all Coughlin or anyone else has to say is "I've got a ring, where's yours?" and he won't have anything to say. I bet he still loses sleep at night thinking about that the Giants won the Superbowl the year after he retired.

Number One Concern: Player Safety

It's a good thing the Giants' brass sent the right man to represent their players. Here is a quote from the Giants' All-Pro center regarding these talks.


“I almost hope we don’t (reach a deal this week), because that would be a bad deal for us,” The one thing that bothers me is when I hear people say players haven’t asked for anything. I don’t agree with that. “There’s things that we need and we want as players. The fact that we only have five years of health-care coverage post-retirement, that’s alarming to me. Especially when you hear the owners and the league talk about player safety, player wellness.”


Now that is alarming to me. Every few weeks during the season you hear about an ex-NFL player that is dealing with brain damage or other head injuries caused by a large amount of concussions. Sure most of the players that retired have a lot of money, and don't need it. We're not talking about Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, whose great, grandchildren are set for life. We're talking about guys that played for a few seasons or a career backup player. They might make a pretty penny, but certainly not enough to pay for brain surgery if need be. 


One of the major issues is how to spread around $9 billion. Another issue is how to improve player safety. Why not use one to help the other? Improve the players' healthcare and that will go a long way. The players are what bring in the benjamins, not these fat owners. Help them out. 

Rockies Love Their Quarterbacks

We all know about Eli and Peyton Manning, but what about their college backups? Of course, they are on the Colorado Rockies. Eli's backup, Seth Smith, and Peyton's backup, Todd Helton, have had pretty good baseball careers. That's not all the quarterbacks the Rockies have gotten involved with. In 2000, they selected Michael Vick in the 30th round (887th overall) just about a month after being selected 1st overall by the Atlanta Falcons. So that got me thinking.

Say if there is no football this year. Could anyone on the Giants try their hand at any other sports? Afterall, two-sports stars were common in the 1990s. We all know about Deion Sanders, Brian Jordan and Bo Jackson playing both baseball and football. Heck, Tom Glavine was selected in the 2nd round of the 1984 NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Kings.

It's safe to say that almost everyone on the offensive line could not play any other sport. Could you imagine a 325 pound 3rd baseman? I know I can't. One person that comes to mind is Hakeem Nicks. He's probably the best athlete on the Giants, and he wouldn't be a bad addition to the New York Knicks (no pun intended). The Islanders need all the help they can get, and Kevin Boss is very good at pushing people around. I think he'd make a great enforcer in the National Hockey League. It'll be awfully tough for any Giant to go over to baseball for one year, because it's very tough to figure out how to hit in a short period of time.

Things Getting Ugly

It's one thing to be aggressive during the CBA talks or to disagree with what people have to say. It's something completely different to disrespect two of the top quarterbacks ever to play in this league while doing so. As many of you know, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees went to the meeting to talk about one of the more important issues in the NFL, player safety. Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who is being the loudest voice in the meeting, asked the two star quarterbacks, "What do you know about player safety?" That is just like asking 'What does Bill Gates know about computers?'

No matter what topic is discussed, one question that has to be asked is 'how will this affect the player's safety?' What better way to understand by asking two players that have been around a long time? Of course, Peyton Manning has played in 227 consecutive games including the playoffs, but he has been hit a bunch of times. He certainly knows a thing about player safety as does Drew Brees, who has gotten hurt quite a number of times on the field.

One thing we do not need during these meetings is name calling and shows of disrespect. They are not on an elementary school playground. They are all grown men talking about the NFL. Some of the people that read this really do not like Peyton Manning, but everyone has to respect him, just like Andy Reid. I can't stand him, but I have to respect him, since he's a great football coach.

The more I read about this, the more I think that 2011 will be a shortened season at best, which is a shame, since the Giants have a chance to be a great team next year.

Solution To The Revenue Issue

As many of you fans know, the labor talks have stopped for now. One of the biggest issues going into those talks are what to do with the 9 billion dollars in revenue. Like many of you that read this, I don't understand how much money that is, but I will take a guess that you can change a lot with that money. Maybe we've been too difficult on the players for being big babies, since the owners are just as bad. Does Robert Kraft, owner of Kraft Cheese or Dan Gilbert, owner of Intuit, really need anymore money? Take a page out of late Giants owner Wellington Mara's book and spread the money around. Mara was one of the biggest advocates of revenue sharing, and the Giants made a ton of money.

So what do you do with the money? Do you spread it out equally throughout the teams and give them each $281,250,000? No, that would be giving these owners too much money that the teams would never see. There's a better solution that I guarantee that no one has brought up, since everyone in the NFL are greedy. Let the NFL keep 1 billion dollars, spread out another billion to the 32 teams and donate 7 to charity. The $1,000,000 is plenty for the league to overcome any lawsuits it may face, as it's more than enough to spread throughout all the teams. Each team gets $31,250,000 to keep the owners happy. Now I don't know what you can do with that kind of money, but I guarantee that 7 billion dollars will be able to change this country somehow.

Here's a radical idea. Give $100,000 to 7,000 of the poorest families in America. One big problem in this country is that the richest 10% of the United States have more money than the bottom 90%. This will never happen, because no one really cares about changing anything especially those rich, fat cats that are running things.

The owners shouldn't have any say here. Let a group of average fans making $40,000 a year decide what to do with that money. Isn't football played for the fans anyway? Or is that just what the NFL wants us to believe?