Tiki Barber threatens to ban WFAN caller because he wants the Giants to tank, fails to realize they keep losing anyways

Tiki Barber is done with Giants fans calling into WFAN and saying the team should tank. Tensions boiled over on Tuesday, when he went full send on a caller who suggested that losing games might be in the Giants’ best interest.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing transcribed the WFAN segment from Tuesday…

Tiki Barber threatened to ban Giants fans who call up and say the team should tank:

“That’s the most ridiculous phone call I’ve ever heard in my life. No player or coach is ever going to try to lose a football game. And if someone calls this station again and says they should lose a game I’m hanging up on you and banning you from the station. It is the stupidest, most ridiculous thing I’ve ever freakin’ heard. So stop saying ‘lose games, lose games so you can draft higher.’ The draft is not a guarantee. Rookies suck too by the way. So forget thinking you’re’ going to change your franchise by losing games. It doesn’t work that way, because you end up firing people, everybody has a negative connotation about the organization, free agents don’t come, and it all starts because you want to lose one game.”

I appreciate the passion (not really), but Tiki Barber might need to chill for a second.

I also used to think that the Philadelphia 76ers perfected the Art of the Tank but clearly, I was dead wrong about that too. Regardless, players and coaches always say they’ll never try to lose—which makes sense because they’re not the ones making the roster decisions. Basically, their performance will impact their paychecks so you can’t really fault them for that.

Front offices however, they absolutely tank, and sometimes it works beautifully.

Look at what the Eagles did in 2020. One game. That’s all it took.

They tanked the last game of the season against Washington, dropping from pick #9 to pick #6 in the draft. That pick turned into DeVonta Smith, which set off a chain of moves that brought Jordan Davis, AJ Brown, and Jalen Carter to Philadelphia.

The result? Two Super Bowl appearances in four years and another Lombardi Trophy. That said, the Eagles successfully flipped the franchise in roughly two years.

Call Me Crazy, but the Giants are trying to win, it’s just not working

Tiki Barber is out here yelling about “trying to win,” but let’s be real—the Giants have been trying for a decade and still stink. They’ve had one winning season in the last eight years. They accidentally overachieved in Brian Daboll’s first season, tricked themselves into thinking Daniel Jones was the guy, and now they’ve gone from nine wins to six to three.

They let Saquon Barkley remain in the NFC East, sign with the Eagles, and ultimately win a Super Bowl after a HISTORIC regular season. Most recently, they signed Darius Slayton to the same contract that they refused to offer Barkley last year! This is an unserious organization.

Hilarious: Giants gave Darius Slayton the same deal they refused to give Saquon Barkley last offseason

Either the Giants attempt to win football games and do not. Or they strategically tank and improve their draft positioning to actually build a competent football program.

I think we are all in agreement on what’s worse, right?

A strategic tank can save your franchise from purgatory, which is exactly where the Giants and their fanbase have been for the better part of a decade. This organization is the opposite of whatever you would consider to be the beacon of competitiveness (Go Birds).

Tiki Barber Can Yell, But He Can’t Change Reality

If Tiki Barber wants to ban anyone, it definitely shouldn’t be the Giants fanbase. Instead of going against the team’s supporters, maybe Tikik Barber can direct all of his fake “tough guy” anger at the organization itself. That seems much more productive then attacking a fanbase that is completely fed up with how things have been going, right?

Better yet, maybe Tiki Barber does us all a favor and bans himself from acting like a moron on the radio? One can only hope…

The truth is, tanking can work when done right. It doesn’t mean throwing entire seasons away, but if you’re out of the playoff hunt in December, it’s smarter to lose strategically than to win meaningless games and draft in the middle.

The Giants could keep pretending that gutting out a 6-11 season is noble, but that’s just purgatory. They’re stuck there now, and no amount of WFAN rants will change that.

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