New York Giants offensive tackle Evan Neal is taking heat from all sides for calling the team’s supporters “fair-weather fans.”
ESPN radio broadcaster Don La Greca, for instance, flamed Neal as “human trash” for disrespecting the fans the way he did, according to Fox News.
The drive-time New York talk show host even suggested that the Giants should cut Neal for his comments.
“Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? I’d cut his ass. I would,” La Greca yelled during his show Thursday. “How dare you? How dare you? These people pay your salary, they pay an obnoxious amount of money to park, an obnoxious amount of money for PSLs, to sit there and watch this pap, and you call them hamburger flippers? What, you’re so much better? I’d rather have a guy that’s flipping hamburgers block than your piece of garbage a–. Who the hell are you to talk to fans like that? You piece of garbage!
“What a piece of human trash. I would cut his fat ass,” La Greca continued, adding that fans should boo Neal when they see him on the field or at events.
“How do you condescend to people that pay to watch you play? Poorly, I might add. I hate players like that. Despise them,” he said.
“Don’t ever talk to anybody like that ever again. Seriously,” La Greca ranted. “I don’t care, first-round pick, how much money, hit to the cap. That would really show me something: cut! And I know he’ll get picked up, he’ll play someplace else. One day, you’re not gonna play football anymore. And if there’s a god up above, it’ll be soon. And I hope you’re flipping burgers. And when I buy that burger from you, I’ll spit in it. Throw it right back in your face.”
Neal didn’t just call the fans “fair-weather,” either. He also called fans “sheep” and called them menial workers in life.
“They were booing us, so I said, ‘Boo louder!'” Neal told Darryl Slater of NJ Advance Media, according to NFL.com.
The second-year offensive lineman didn’t stop there regarding critics of his play and the team, asking Slater, “Why would a lion concern himself with the opinion of a sheep? … The person that’s commenting on my performance, what does he do? Flip hot dogs and hamburgers somewhere?”
Asked by Slater why he told fans to boo louder, Neal added, “Because that just further shows that people are fair-weather. A lot of fans are bandwagoners. I mean, I get it: They want to see us perform well. And I respect all of that. But no one wants us to perform well more than we do.
“And how can you say you’re really a fan when we’re out there battling our asses off — and the game wasn’t going well — but the best you can do is boo your home team? So, how much of a fan are you, really?”
Evan Neal #73 of the New York Giants blocks Brian Burns #53 of the Carolina Panthers at MetLife Stadium on September 18, 2022 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
He also apologized later on.
“I am wrong for lashing out at the fans who are just as passionate and frustrated as I am,” Neal wrote, according to the site. “I let my frustrations in my play + desire to win get the best of me. I had no right to make light of anyone’s job, and I deeply regret the things I said.”
“We are working day in and day out to grow as a team, and this was an unnecessary distraction. I apologize,” he said.
Neal also said, “I’m remorseful. I definitely could’ve used a better choice of words. Coming from humble beginnings myself, I never want to belittle anyone, regardless of their financial status or their occupation. So, I really just wanted to apologize for what I said.”
“I want the fans to know that I’m a human, like everyone else. If you ask anyone that’s ever been around me, they always speak highly of me. Nobody’s perfect, including myself,” he explained.
Giants head coach Brian Daboll said that Neal just made a mistake and that they are moving on, saying, “I think that Evan made a statement. We spoke. I know he was very remorseful, regretful for the comment that he made.”
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