Collins’ Flowers remarks a sign of leadership
LANDON Collins is trying to be the next great Giants defensive leader, if he isn’t already. That’s why he wasn’t afraid to talk about offensive tackle Ereck Flowers on Friday during a media tour to promote a softball game this June between Giants past and present.
During a radio segment with WFAN, Collins offered his thoughts on why Flowers has been a noshow for the Giants’ offseason workout program when everyone else is acclimating themselves to new head coach Pat Shurmur and his staff. Collins suggested Flowers is miffed the Giants signed Nate Solder and handed him the job at left tackle, moving Flowers to the right side.
“It’s not that he doesn’t want to be here, he’s just really unhappy that they picked up Solder,” Collins said on WFAN, adding, “He has a lot to learn and he has to work harder.”
The words might sound harsh, but it’s part of the tough love approach Collins has fallen into (see Eli Apple). Collins wasn’t kicking Flowers under the bus as much as letting him know there will be no excuses once he does show up.
During lunch break away from the microphones, Collins was miffed his initial comments were being portrayed as a criticism of Flowers.
“At the end of the day, he’s working hard,” Collins told The Post. “I know where he came from; I know his work ethic; I know his background. We came in to the league together and we’ve always talked. For somebody to say that I was calling him a first-round bust, I’d never call him a first-round bust. I’d never talk about a teammate like that. He’s working hard and I know he’s going to work hard and have a good year.”
Brandon Jacobs, the former Giants running back and two-time Super Bowl winner, was sitting next to Collins. The two were in the midst of a day-long media blitz to promote the second annual Landon Collins Celebrity Softball Game on June 9. Jacobs, drafted in 2005, couldn’t get past the fact Flowers was actually missing OTAs.
“For someone in their fourth year to call and say, ‘ I’m not coming.’ ... That wouldn’t happen,” Jacobs said. “A nine-year veteran, maybe.”
Despite all the good news coming out of the Giants, Flowers’ absence feels like a continuance of the dissension that wrecked the locker room last season. During their lunch Friday, Jacobs offered Collins some advice on how the Super Bowl XLII and XLVI teams built their unity.
“Get your group together every Friday,” Jacobs told Collins. “Get your group together and go eat. That’s what we used to do: The running backs used to go eat; O-Line used to go eat; DLine used to go eat; Wide receivers used to go eat; DBs used to go eat; and the kickers fell in whatever group they wanted to be in. You have to spend time off the field together and I’m telling you it will work wonders. It’s not just about on the field.”
The softball game, at Palisades Credit Union Park in Pomona, N.Y., is a product and a developer of that unity. Proceeds will benefit the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund. There will be a home run derby and then a friendly game between the old Giants and young Giants. For Jacobs, it’s a chance to reunite with former teammates. For Collins, it’s a chance for his teammates to build stronger bonds heading into this season. If Jacobs is right, it could be a key to winning another Super Bowl.
“One thing about my teams that I’ve been on, we have never, ever, ever in life went against each other,” Jacobs said. “Everything has always been for each other, and we’ve always supported each other. Even when somebody said something off the wall, it was, ‘We’ve got to back him up.’ We got to make sure we’re going to make him right. We’ve got to make sure that he knows we support him regardless of the media, the head coach or what the organization may have thought about what he said. He’s going to know these 53 men in this locker room, we’re going to ride with him. That’s just what it was.”
That’s how it should be.