The 2017 season has been a disaster for the Giants on the field and things haven’t been much better off of it.
One of the more recent off-field issues has concerned cornerback Eli Apple, who spent last Sunday tweeting during the team’s loss to the Cowboys while he was a healthy scratch (his version) or out of the lineup because of a hip injury that limited his practice time (interim coach Steve Spagnuolo’s version).
Apple hasn’t played well when he has been in the lineup and he’s also dealt with medical issues in his family, which led safety Landon Collins to say on Wednesday that Apple’s struggles have been “mental” and that he “had a sitdown” with the cornerback to let him know the team needs him.
“We need him to be here,” Collins said, via NJ.com. “We need him to want to be here. Not fighting against us, or fighting against the coaches or the organization or whoever he’s fighting against in his head. We don’t need him fighting us.”
That sounds like a good thing for a teammate to say, right? The only issue is that, per multiple reports from the Giants facility, Apple said on Thursday that he’s never had such a conversation with Collins. Collins responded to that by saying that Apple doesn’t remember things before saying he wouldn’t talk about it more in order to avoid further controversy.
Apple was a first-round pick in 2016, but hasn’t done much on the field in either of his first two seasons and, assuming the Giants make outside hires at coach and G.M., his future with the team will be up to people who had nothing to do with bringing him to the organization. If those people feel Apple’s not part of the program, he may be playing further away from the Big Apple when the 2018 season gets underway.