Barber was wrong to throw Coughlin under the bus

By Andy Targovnik  |   Thursday, November 23, 2006  |  Comments( 1 )

New York Giants
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When the New York Giants hit tough times, the players always know who to blame - and it's never the guy in the mirror.

This is nothing new. It's been going on all year. The moment things start to go wrong, the finger pointing begins, too.

Both Plaxico Burress and Jeremy Shockey have physically ranted and raved on the field at Eli Manning. Of course, you would need an abacus to count all of their dropped balls, but, hey, it's never their fault.

But because so many of us expect that behavior from those two guys, it doesn't carry much weight. But when Tiki Barber starts to play the blame game, you have to wonder how much longer this house of cards will stay standing.

Like Shockey did earlier in the year, Barber called out his head coach, Tom Coughlin, in public. Barber was upset because he didn't carry the ball enough in the Giants' Monday night loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

On merit, Barber may have a point. The game was close enough that he should have seen the ball more than 10 times.

But Barber should have addressed it privately with Coughlin - not take it up with the media. And if you're going to complain, you should really perform a little better than a measly 2.7 yards per carry.

This 'blaming the other guy' syndrome is really getting tiresome.

The Giants lost to Jacksonville not because of any one person, but for a myriad of reasons. Manning was horrible; Burress dropped a touchdown; and the Jags' running backs sliced through the Giants' defenders like they were Swiss cheese. Should I go on?

Barber, who the majority of the media treats like the Mahatma Gandhi of the gridiron, blew it. At best, he could have voiced support for his head coach. At worst, he could have just kept his mouth shut.

The Giants are ravaged by injury, and if they are going to make a run in the last few weeks of the season, they need to come together as a team. In what is supposedly his final season, the 31-year-old Barber had the chance to step up as a leader and try to right this floundering ship.

But like so many other New York Football Giants, he chose to throw someone else under the bus.
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