TV-RADIO - Tiki torches former team now
Honesty is generally the best policy. But is there such a thing as being too honest, particularly if you're a former player or coach just starting out in broadcasting?
NBC newcomer Tiki Barber, who made his regular-season debut Thursday night, stirred things up a few weeks ago when he questioned the leadership skills of a former teammate, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning. And Barber found himself in the middle of another hornets' nest this week when a published excerpt from his upcoming book included criticism of Giants Coach Tom Coughlin for being such a disciplinarian.
Last year, Jerome Bettis, then an NBC newcomer, created a controversy, particularly in Pittsburgh, when he speculated during the preseason that Bill Cowher would be stepping down as the Steelers' coach at the end of the season, which he did.
And a couple of weeks ago it came out that Bettis, in a soon-to-be-published book co-written with ESPN.com columnist and former Times staff writer Gene Wojciechowski, claims he faked an injury during training camp in 2000 so the Steelers couldn't cut him.
Barber's tough analysis of Coughlin was big news in New York. One tabloid ran a story under the headline "Tiki's Torment" that said Coughlin was the reason he left the Giants. On the Sirius Satellite Radio show he does with twin brother Ronde, Barber called the accusation "totally false," although he said Coughlin "played into the factors a little bit."
Shannon Sharpe of CBS' "The NFL Today," when asked Thursday about the controversies involving Barber, said: "The only problem I have with Tiki is it seemed to have gotten personal with what he said about Eli."
Sharpe said when he first got into broadcasting, he criticized former teammate and Denver Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer. But it was different.
"When I criticized Jake Plummer, I was talking about me being in the hole with him, seeing that every opportunity that we had to do something really, really good, he would shoot us in the foot by throwing a costly interception or turning the ball over," Sharpe said. "I never talked about what transpired in a meeting room or when we got together in a private setting. There are some things that the public, under no circumstances, should know. When he said it was comical about Eli's being a leader, he was wrong."
During an earlier conference call Fox commentators had with reporters, Troy Aikman said that maybe he now understands why the Giants have underachieved in recent years.
