Tommy Lugauer was going off on his latest Brian Daboll rant on Tuesday, leading to an epic rant by Tiki Barber going off on the inexperience and lack of focus by the Giants youngsters, who he believes aren’t living up to the expectations and demands of their head coach.
Deonte Banks was benched in the second half after he was criticized for lack of effort the week before, and Malik Nabers had a costly drop in the fourth quarter, where the easy catch would have meant a first down deep in Steelers territory with the Giants down 11.
Tiki says the lack of execution should be what’s on trial for Big Blue, and not just the head coach.
“He’s a rookie. I hate rookies,” Tiki said. “There’s been one rookie in the history of my playing career that I loved. That was Jeremy Shockey, because he got it. He was a dog from jump.
“Rookies suck, because they don’t get it. I don’t think Malik Nabers is one of those guys that are just happy to be there. But a lot of guys are just happy to be there. ‘Hey, I’m in the N...dude, you don’t know what it takes to be a superstar. You can’t quit on plays, Deonte Banks. You can’t drop passes, Malik Nabers. You gotta run routes. First game of the season...I got on Malik Nabers because he was lazy running his routes...rookies are lazy and stupid because they don’t understand what it takes to be a professional.
“Rookies are dumb. They don’t understand. Some of them get it, but a lot of them don’t. don’t sit here and talk to me about coaching, because players are ultimately the ones who have to do it.
“Dabs coaches these guys hard. They’re just not executing.”
Beyond the youngsters, Tiki says the veterans also need to start executing the game plan, as Daniel Jones struggled once again in primetime where Tiki felt that the quarterback could have done a better job of seeing what’s in front of him and making the necessary adjustments at the line of scrimmage that are likely gone over in detail by the coaching staff, but it’s up to the players to execute them once the game starts.
“It’s Daniel Jones not putting the tight end in motion so you don’t get strip sacked by the best defensive end in football,” Tiki said. “If you gotta think in football, trust me, it happens too fast.”