How Tiki Barber Went From Hero To Zero With Giants Fans

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- NBC football analyst Tiki Barber retired from the New York Giants after the 2006 season, secure in his reputation as the greatest offensive player in the storied team's history.

Now, as the upstart "Jints" prepare to play the heavily favored and undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, Barber looks positively offensive to many of his old fans. In fact, he may be the loneliest man on the football scene during the buildup to Super Bowl XLII on Feb. 3 in Arizona. .

As the television networks scramble to snare exclusive interviews, Barber, who also is prominent on "Today," would seem to be NBC's key player because he knows the Giants players and coaches so well.

Problem is, Barber is persona non grata now. Based on media reports, he stands a better chance at scoring a sit-down with Osama bin Laden than with Eli Manning or Michael Strahan. Barber is on the outside looking in at a very bad time for NBC.

Stirring up trouble

In recent years, Barber angered fans and his then-teammates on several occasions. During the 2006 season, he took heat when word conveniently leaked to the New York Times that he intended to retire after the last game. Many interpreted the leak as his way of inciting a bidding war for his services as a full-time broadcaster after retirement.

You could say that Barber's maneuver worked brilliantly. NBC, a unit of General Electric , outbid rivals to sign him.

While the move may have helped Barber's career, disclosure of his pending retirement upset the team's fragile chemistry and reportedly contributed to its second-half slump.

In the long run, though, the Giants are better off without him.

With Barber on the roster, the team struggled to make the playoffs and got bounced in the first round. Heading into the 2007 season, fans and football experts alike were pessimistic about the Giants' prospects of replacing its star running back. But the team has made it all the way to the big game.

How could this happen? Aren't teams supposed to do worse when an icon leaves? Well, what the Giants lost on the field, they have gained in terms of stronger team unity.

Another reason why Barber drew barbs is because he ripped Coach Tom Coughlin's ability to develop winning strategies and quarterback Eli Manning's leadership skills.

Granted, many Giants fans (including, dare I say, this columnist) said the same sorts of things about Coughlin and Manning. The difference is, they weren't my teammates. Sports locker rooms have an unspoken law: What happens here, stays here. Barber violated that team-oriented concept by going public with his rebukes. This contributed to the fans souring on him, too, whether their reaction was fair or not.

To many Giants fans, Barber has come across as a me-first diva. For instance, check out the post from "Tiki hater" in a Jan. 23 item from the New York Times' blog "The Fifth Down":

"Who cares about this guy? He is arrogant, smug, selfish, and a pretty lousy sportscaster. The Giants have proven that they are better without him. The record speaks for itself."

The outsider

As the Times related, Barber opened up a bit last week during "The Barber Shop," a Sirius Satellite Radio show that he co-hosts with his brother Ronde, who stars with the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Ronde asked him the million-dollar question, "Are you sad you're not playing" in the Super Bowl?

Tiki replied: "I'm not, dude. I'm really not. And I'm happy for them. I really am. A lot of people assume, and this has been somewhat of a source of consternation for me, mainly because of the media-driven, for lack of a better word, B.S., that gets put in the New York media and then picked up around the country about me being overly critical of the New York Giants. I said what I said because it is my job to say what I said about the New York Giants but that doesn't mean that I'm nt a supporter of an organization that was part of my family for years."

It's hard to believe that an athlete as competitive as Barber could casually sit back with a Bud and a bag of Doritos and watch his former teammates playing in the big game without him. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Barber suffered plenty of injuries during his football career. But being on the outside looking in this week may be even more painful.

: What do you like or dislike about Tiki Barber as a television personality?

Financial journalists turned in a mixed performance reporting on the roller-coaster stock market. While they groped to try to understand what was happening in the markets, I fret that the reporters and editors also inflamed the public's fears. Media members shouldn't fan the nervousness of novice investors, and I'm afraid that this is what happened.

to about Chris Matthews and Hillary Clinton:

"Your column is a perfectly sensible one and you tell the story accurately right up until you get to: 'NBC isn't the first to bend to Clinton.' That's a negative! NBC did NOT bend to Clinton, but to the left blogosphere."

-- Richmond L. Gardner

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By Jon Friedman