Osi: Lockout stops GM from keeping word
Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora. Credit: David Pokress
Osi Umenyiora said his affidavit that will be part of the players' antitrust lawsuit against the NFL next month was not meant to paint Giants general manager Jerry Reese as a liar, but rather to show that Reese is unable to keep promises he made because of the lockout.
"I felt like this is the time period in which a deal was supposed to be renegotiated or I was supposed to be traded to another team as per our conversation," Umenyiora said Friday in a phone conversation from his home outside Atlanta. "But none of that can happen because we're being locked out."
Umenyiora's statement was made public Thursday. In it, he described a conversation with Reese in which he was told that if he had two strong seasons, he either would receive a new contract that would make him one of the five highest-paid defensive ends in the NFL or be traded to a team that would accommodate such a salary.
"This is crazy to me," Umenyiora said of the fallout, which he said caught him off guard because the testimony was made in April and is not supposed to be filed until mid-July. "When it came out and everybody was saying I'm saying this or I'm saying that, that's not what it was about. It was basically saying that because we're locked out right now, it's preventing my agent from talking to them and preventing them from talking to other teams about trading me. All of those things that were supposed to be done can't be done because we're being locked out. The lockout is doing me irreparable harm."
Umenyiora said he expects the Giants to keep their promise once the lockout ends. "I feel like Jerry is a man of his word and the Giants are a first-class organization and they will do exactly what was discussed," he said.
And if they don't? Umenyiora has two years remaining on the six-year, $41-million extension he signed late in 2005. It's within the Giants' rights to simply ignore him and make him honor that contract. If that's the case, would Umenyiora report to Giants training camp under his current deal?
Said Umenyiora, "I'd honestly have to sit and discuss that with Tony [Agnone, his agent]."
