Rashad Jennings Used His Weekly New York Post Column to Apologize to Eli Manning
By Kyle Koster
Rashad Jennings is providing the New York Post with a weekly column this season. The running back’s role in the Giants’ painful loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night ensured that this week’s piece would be interesting. But Jennings really went the extra mile by using his precious print media platform to apologize profusely for Eli Manning for throwing him under the bus.
"First of all, let me say that I want to apologize from my heart for the negative light that I unintentionally cast my quarterback and friend Eli Manning in. I continue to have the utmost respect for him, and I have complete trust in his leadership. It is a strange and unwelcome feeling I have that after all these years as a professional football player, I finally get to experience the other side of how words can be misconstrued. I see now how what I said could easily be misunderstood as an expression of resentment. I make no claims to be a perfect communicator. But I also assure that I had no ill will at all in stating what I did. Yet, I admit in retrospect that I should not have shared that information with the world. I chose to do so, and for that choice, I am truly sorry."
Jennings said he apologized to Manning in person as soon as headlines about Manning’s instruction to avoid the end zone posted. He expressed a similar sentiment to Tom Coughlin while getting superdeep.
"As professional competitors, our deep-rooted desire to win is usually our best friend. It can drive us to leave everything out there on the field. But sometimes, if we are not careful, it can consume us enough to lead us, in the heat of a moment, to say things that only our souls should hear."
The mea culpa is a savvy move from Jennings. In addition to smoothing things over with his quarterback, the column is a successful piece of internet clickbait. Work like this will earn him a place at the Players Tribune in no time.