After hearing Tom Brady torch Daniel Jones for requesting his release from the New York Giants, Tiki Barber believes there’s a reason for the misinformed take.
Jones requested and was granted his release from the Giants last month after he was benched for the remainder of the season. The request came after the Giants made it clear they weren’t going to let him be a team participant, choosing to prioritize avoiding any risk of inducing the $23 million injury guarantee that was in his contract for 2025.
On Thanksgiving, however, Brady ignored the contract stipulation to make it clear he didn’t approve of Jones requesting his release, and ripped the former Giants quarterback while doing so.
“I don’t know how the whole situation went down but to think that you would ask for a release from a team that committed a lot to you is maybe different than I would have handled that,” Brady said. “I always felt I wanted to get the trust and respect of my teammates regardless of the situation, knowing that I was trying to do the best I could for the team because that was the most important thing.
“There are some different things that happen in the NFL and everyone makes individual choices and I think we all at points in our career face different challenges. I faced them in college and some things didn’t go the way I wanted. But the people that mattered the most to me were the guys in the locker room. I showed up every day. I don’t care if they asked me to be scout-team safety, be scout-team quarterback. I was going to do whatever I could to help the team win.”
That’s Brady for you. Brady will do anything and everything to help his team — just not his Fox team. As part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, Brady can’t join his Fox teammates for production meetings with teams and players. Monday afternoon, former Giants running back and current WFAN radio host Tiki Barber claimed Brady’s assessment of the situation highlighted the fact that the NFL on Fox analyst is prohibited from taking part in production meetings.
“I don’t think [Tom Brady] is privy enough to the information he needs to be to have that conversation about Daniel Jones, and to criticize Daniel Jones like that. That’s just wrong of Tom.” – Tiki Barber pic.twitter.com/m0rDiT3ihF
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 3, 2024
“Do you think he’s having that conversation because he doesn’t do production meetings?” Barber asked. “If you have any kind of conversation with anybody on the Giants, you are not saying that. I honestly don’t think you’re saying it that way.”
As an NFL analyst on CBS, Barber also knows the value of those production meetings. And Barber surmised the Giants quickly would have explained the injury guarantee in Jones’ contract to Brady if he was able to take part in a production meeting. But without that meeting, Brady just saw the headlines of Jones requesting his release after getting benched and decided to portray the quarterback as a bad teammate.
“The reason that he asked for his release is because they wouldn’t even let him work out,” Barber continued of Jones. “Like, going to the gym, lift weights, do anything that was physical, he couldn’t do it! So he’s gonna sit around for six weeks and basically just be a potato? And do nothing? If you have a conversation, a production meeting with the Giants about all this stuff that’s actually going on that most people aren’t privy to, you don’t say what you just said on the air.
“The first thing I thought about when I heard this last week was, ‘I don’t think he’s talked to anybody about this Daniel Jones situation’…I don’t think Tom is privy enough to the information he needs to be to have that conversation about Daniel Jones and to criticize Daniel Jones like that. That’s just wrong of Tom.”
Brady’s Daniel Jones hot take probably could have been nullified by a meeting with the Giants. But this is one where he shouldn’t have needed the production meeting. Most Giants fans understood why Jones was released, why didn’t Brady? Maybe he was just looking for a hot take to add some juice to what has been a rather mundane rookie season as a broadcaster.
[WFAN]
