If the New York Giants want to finish a disastrous season relatively incident free, they’re not doing a good job. Defensive backs Landon Collins and Eli Apple seem to be in disagreement about how supportive Collins has been of Apple during a down season.
“We need him to be here,” Collins said of Apple, per James Kratz of 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.”
Of course, whether that was actually said from Collins to Apple is a matter of some dispute.
“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,” Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk noted. “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.”
This is the absolute last thing that the Giants need right now.
The 2017 season has been one disaster after another. At 2-11, the on-field performance has obviously fallen well short of expectations for a team that entered the year Super Bowl buzz. New York’s players were also plagued all year with issues with their now former coach, Ben McAdoo. The drama reached a high point in Week 13, when quarterback Eli Manning was unceremoniously benched. Following that game, both McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese were fired.
With the possible exception of the play of rookie tight end Evan Engram, nothing about this season is going to be remembered fondly. The best thing the Giants can do is play the remaining games out in relative anonymity and look towards 2018. But if Apple and Collins are making their disagreements public knowledge, remaining under the radar is going to be tough to achieve.