What started as a debate between Ryan Clark and Tiki Barber — with Saquon Barkley’s free agency decision igniting their argument — now includes WFAN host Gregg Giannotti.
During Friday’s “Boomer and Gio” show, Giannotti blasted Clark’s recent comments that’d diminished Barber by recalling an exchange he witnessed in the Steelers’ locker room — from an unknown year but when Clark was playing — and describing him as someone who was a “D-bag in that locker room.”
“He goes on his podcast, whether his or somebody else’s, and just destroys Tiki Barber for no reason whatsoever,” Giannotti said.
Giannotti alleged that Clark made a local newspaper reporter “feel like a piece of crap” when he was asked a question, claiming that Clark — whose 13-year NFL career included stops with the Giants, Steelers and Washington before he transitioned into media — “undressed this man verbally.”
“He said, ‘You just don’t like the fact that I’ll be able to do your job better than you in three years when I retire,’” Giannotti alleged. “… So, you’re the classy guy? My ass you are. So, don’t sit up on some high horse thinking that you’re the professional in the room and Tiki Barber is some jerk that didn’t treat you right.”
This all dates back to the immediate aftermath of Barkley’s three-year, $37.75 million deal with the Eagles that ended his Giants tenure, when Barber — another former Giants running back — immediately criticized Barkley on his show.
“He’s dead to us now,” Barber said Monday on the “Evan & Tiki” show. “You’re dead to us, Saquon.”
Barkley, who spent the first six seasons of his NFL career with the Giants but couldn’t negotiate a long-term deal that’d keep him with them for the foreseeable future, then returned a jab to Barber on X, calling him a “hater” since Barkley arrived as the No. 2 overall pick.
“I got the deal I wanted, secured more gm which wasn’t given to me before… so if fans are gonna hate me for that so be it!” Barkley wrote on X. “But I never turned my back on my teammates and always had theirs.”
Barber addressed the situation again later in the week and claimed his “dead to us” line was “basically tongue in cheek.”
with the Eagles in free agency. Screengrab via X/@WFAN660
But that was all followed by another layer, this time involving Clark, who said during an episode of “The Pivot” podcast that Barber “taught me how you don’t make a young player feel welcome, how you don’t make a young player feel that one day this can be his team.”
Barber accused Clark of “making blank up cause you don’t know me like that” and insisted that Clark ask former Giants running back Brandon Jacobs if he’d been embraced by Barber.
He spent all 10 of his seasons with the Giants after they selected him in the second round of the 1997 NFL Draft.
