While brother Ronde appears to be the very soul of dignity as he continues his future Hall of Fame career down in Tampa Bay, former New York Giants running back Tiki Barber managed to offend quite a few people with a recent comment. Explaining the media scrutiny he's received since he left his pregnant wife to be with his 23-year-old girlfriend, Barber told L. Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated that he moved into the attic of his agent, Mark Lepselter, to escape prying eyes.
"Lep's Jewish," Barber allegedly said, "and it was like a reverse Anne Frank thing."
Um, yeah. A millionaire pro football player comparing himself to a teenage Jewish Holocaust victim is going to go over about as well as Adrian Peterson's recent "modern-day slavery" comment, but at least Peterson had a bit of context with which to defend himself. Barber's comment was thoughtless at best and asinine at worst. It's certainly the wrong step to take as Barber tries to rehab his image in the wake of professional and personal failures, and as he tried to convince people that he's got a legitimate future in the NFL as a comeback story.
Barber was never known as the most tactful sort; it's well-known that his way of doing things put off some of his old teammates, especially when he questioned the leadership of the Giants quarterback as a member of the media as opposed to a guy in the locker room who would have to answer for his words. And his concept of himself as a future media magnate hasn't gone as expected. But this is a larger bump in the road. Judging from initial reactions, Barber, who is an NFL analyst for Yahoo! Sports, will have quite a time living this down.
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