In case you haven’t heard, Michael Strahan talked really loudly to an ESPN reporter. He pointed his finger at her too.  A real tense situation. It seems that the reporter, Kelly Naqi, almost didn’t make it out of the locker room alive.  Luckily crisis negotiators were on the scene to defuse the situation. And now Giants are joining in song, standing up against the establishment. Sticking it to the man.  They won’t take the tyranny that has been inflected against them any longer. They will not let the powers at NBC, WFAN, ESPN or The New York Daily News break them. Instead they will use this situation to drive them to victory on Sunday.  I also think someone said “We will protect this house!!” but that wasn’t confirmed.

*Yawn*

Just another day in the codependent (and manipulative) relationship between professional athletes and the media.  “I’m just trying to do my job” the media cries “All you care about is the negative” the athletes scream.

Both parties need to shut up.

Was Strahan a bit out of control during his rambling tirade? Yep.  Did his actions make absolutely no sense? They made no sense what so ever.  But seriously, ESPN and the local media have blown this way out of proportion.  Members of the sports media constantly say that athletes need to deal with the pressure from the media.  That it’s a part of the job. “The price of fame” they say.  And for the most part they are right.  I personally feel that questions regarding an athletes’ personal life, family, sexual orientation, maternity payments or anything else along those lines should be off limits.  But reporters have the right to question athletes about topics that are relevant to their team and performance.  However, with that right, reporters need to accept the potential ramifications of asking such questions.  The player may flip out.  That comes with the territory.  They’re humans.  Sometimes we don’t like answering the same question multiple times.  If athletes need to “suck it up” because it’s their job, so do members of the media.  It’s a two-way street.

On the flip side, players need to realize that probably 90% of the “negative stuff” that the media pushes to sell newspapers or drive ratings is not media created.  Players serve up the negative stories on a platter, especially here in New York.  The media didn’t force Strahan to make negative comments about Plaxico Burress without talking to him first. The media didn’t make him lie about the situation either.  He has nobody to blame but himself.  And as much as players complain about the media, most athletes love every second of the attention. Ask Chad Johnson. They have no problem accepting checks to do weekly television or radio shows.  They show up as guest analysts.  They write books, and usually with team beat writers. 

So please, enough with the complaining from the writers and the players.  There are no victims here; you need each other.  And you both know it.

The legend of “Tom Coughlin: Disciplinarian” is a myth.

Sure he yells a lot.  And he has a bunch of  rules.  But he’s no disciplinarian.  Not by a long shot.

When Coughlin was hired as the Giants head coach in 2004, the main selling point was his supposed ability to instill discipline into the team.  Ownership felt former coach Jim Fassel was too soft, too friendly with the players.  The team needed to be pushed, needed to be more concerned with the details.  Coughlin was going to come in and get the Giants to perform with military precision.  The Giants will no longer beat themselves.  No more silly penalties.  No more bad decisions on and off the field.  Players will give full effort on every play.  Coughlin even insinuated that he would cut down on the number of hurt players, calling injuries “a cancer” that he could cure. 

Well two and three fourths seasons later, the Giants aren’t getting better in these areas.  In 2004, the Giants accumulated 977 offensive penalty yards, 7th most in the NFL.  In 2005 that number grew to 1115 yards, 5th most in the league.  Eleven games into the 2006 season the Giants have totaled 614 yards in penalties, 6th most in the league.  As for full effort on every play, if you’ve seen Plaxico Burress half hearted attempts when passes are thrown to him or Devin Hester’s 108 yard field goal return when the Giants played Chicago, it’s obvious that the Giants take plays off.   Every other week it seems that one of the key players calls the coach out.  From Michael Strahan in Coughlin’s first season, to more recently Tiki Barber.  And with seven starters currently injured, Coughlin hasn’t made good on his absurd proclamation that injuries are a “mental thing” and that it could be corrected. 

No, Giants fans didn’t get the coach they thought they were getting.  This team doesn’t play fundamentally sound, gets injured and does not always give a full effort.  They have a very average coach who doesn’t command respect from his players.   Not exactly the type of guy that will your team to the Superbowl.