Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora insists he’s past his offseason drama, and is adopting a new approach to get the contract he desires.
“I wish you could be in my mind. I can’t really put it into words,” Umenyiora told Mike Garafolo of the Newark Star-Ledger, who apparently conducted the interview in Osi’s white Porsche. “It’s an eff-it mentality. I don’t really feel like I have too much to lose right now. And I like it.”
Umenyiora may not be thrilled with his employers, but he realizes he needs to produce and fix his shortcomings against the run.
“He has that look in his eye,” Giants G.M. Jerry Reese said. “He’s always been a great athlete but now he has the look in his eye I’ve seen before, and so have a lot of quarterbacks around the league. That’s when I can tell he’s ready.”
A new “mentality” and a certain “look in his eye” are the stuff that training camp sunshine is made of. To Umenyiora’s credit, he knows it doesn’t mean much.
“I can talk until I’m blue in the face, but the only way I can change people’s perception is to actually play the run and be pretty good at it.”