Rashad Jennings Apologizes To Eli Manning
The New York Giants were on the doorsteps of the end zone. A touchdown would have clinched victory for the Giants but their quarterback, Eli Manning told Rashad Jennings not to score. The unbelievable story is all that anybody can talk about in the aftermath of the Giants loss. Jennings is sorry he revealed what happened to the media. This is what he said in his weekly post for the New York Post:
"First of all, let me say that I want to apologize from my heart for the negative light that I unintentionally cast my quarterback and friend Eli Manning in. I continue to have the utmost respect for him, and I have complete trust in his leadership. It is a strange and unwelcome feeling I have that after all these years as a professional football player, I finally get to experience the other side of how words can be misconstrued.I see now how what I said could easily be misunderstood as an expression of resentment. I make no claims to be a perfect communicator. But I also assure that I had no ill will at all in stating what I did. Yet I admit in retrospect that I should not have shared that information with the world. I chose to do so, and for that choice, I am truly sorry.As soon as I got word of the headlines, I called Eli, and before I could even begin to apologize, he basically expressed his understanding. Being the humble guy that he is, he wanted us to put this fiasco behind us with no hard feelings so that we could focus on the Falcons. That is why I am taking this opportunity to more formalize my apology to Eli, the team and the fans.I also have apologized to Coach [Tom] Coughlin."
So what is my take on this whole situation? It was a pretty classy thing to do by Jennings to publicly apologize for essentially calling out his quarterback. Manning messed up. Jennings followed his lead. Jennings then told the truth, which came off wrong. Jennings apologized about it to show that Manning is still the team’s leader.
At the end of the day this whole scenario should have never happened. Regardless of the amounts of timeouts the Cowboys had a ten point lead with just over a minute and a half would be enough to win the game. Manning made a mistake that you just can’t make.
Manning is still the unquestioned leader of this team and it was important that Jennings apologized to Manning. The lapse of judgment doesn’t change anything for the two time Super Bowl MVP with his team. Manning owned up to the mistake, handled the aftermath with poise. The loss hurts but nothing can be said that erases that. It is time to move on knowing that Manning will make up for it as the season progresses.