Tiki Barber responded to Warren Sapp’s contention that Simeon Rice should be in the Hall of Fame before Michael Strahan by calling Sapp an “idiot,” a position he tried to clarify in a later interview.
Barber was a guest on 98.7 The Fan in Tampa last week and said that his words were blown out of proportion. Barber said he “meant no malice” toward Sapp when he called him an idiot, suggesting that he considered Sapp’s opinion to be of the mindless variety and that he thought Sapp should have found a way to make his point about Rice without tearing down Strahan.
“Look, I have nothing disparaging to say about Warren Sapp,” Barber said, via JoeBucsFan.com. “But here’s what I have to say: He has had a vendetta against Michael Strahan and I don’t even know why he has had a vendetta against Michael Strahan. Maybe because he can because he is a first ballot Hall of Famer and Michael wasn’t. I understand what he was trying to do and get Simeon Rice some credit for what Simeon was as a player and he was a fantastic player rushing the quarterback from the defensive end, but don’t do it at the expense of ‘Stra,’ who is my boy. He’s always had my back.”
That wasn’t always a two-way street, but there’s even less value in rehashing old Strahan-Barber feuds as there is continuing this one much further. Sapp got the rise out of people that he was looking for by making the comment in the first place, other opinions were heard and Rice’s career got more spotlight than it has had in ages. With a month to go until camps open, surely we can find another war of words to occupy us while letting this one fade out.