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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -– Presumably, Sunday's game with New Orleans is Tiki Barber's last appearance at Giants Stadium, but the star running back insists the afternoon is more about his team than it is about him.
Yeah? Try selling that to the crowd of reporters who waited for Barber to appear at his locker Wednesday.
It was a 40-minute exercise, with Barber failing to materialize until someone announced he would accommodate the media -- albeit briefly -- on his way to a positions meeting. That produced a mad dash for the exits, with some of Barber's teammates hollering, "Stampede!" as reporters hurried by.
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| Tiki's tenure in New York has been marked with style and substance. (Getty Images) |
If there's a face to this franchise, it's not Eli Manning or Michael Strahan. It's Barber, the most beloved sports figure in New York outside of the Yankees' Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams. He's good at what he does. He's reliable. He's marketable. And he's one of the game's class acts.
He's also 38 percent of this team's offense, and you can look it up. With 1,357 yards rushing and 429 yards receiving Barber has taken the Giants on his shoulders again and tried to carry them into the playoffs.
Only this time, he's been handicapped by a team-wide slump that has the G-Men dropping five of their last six starts.
That was why Barber tried to deflect questions about himself Wednesday to what's at stake for the club, saying things like "winning is always important at home" and "we need to have a sense of urgency." Well, no kidding. But that was true a week ago, and the Giants fizzled against the Philadelphia Eagles.
So now there's something different about the Giants' next game, and it's Tiki. Sunday's home finale will be Giants fans last chance to catch a glimpse of their best player, and it's high time they appreciate what he did for them -- because Barber always appreciated what they did for him.
"These fans have loved me, and they've hated me," he said. "Through the ups and downs they've always been behind me. That's important. So to go out one last time at home in Giants Stadium is something that I'm eager to do, and something that I'm looking forward to."
Despite their downward spiral, the Giants remain in the playoff picture and can take a giant step toward a wild-card entry by beating New Orleans. That's important. But what I find more significant is that New Orleans is the opponent, with Sean Payton as its head coach.
It was Payton, you might remember, who -- as a Giants assistant -- convinced then-coach Jim Fassel that Barber could be more than a situational back if given the chance to prove himself.
I don't know what would've happened if Payton hadn't spoken up. What I do know is that he convinced Fassel to give Barber a try as an every-down back, and I think you know what happened. The guy's run for 1,200 or more yards the past five years, with a team-record 1,860 last season.