New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora has been allotted a generous portion of real estate on this website today. More precisely, it's his contract we can't stop talking about.
We told you Wednesday morning about teammate Justin Tuck speaking out on behalf of Umenyiora. He's not the only one.
"He's been under contract in a bad deal for years now," fellow Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanukatold the New York Daily News after Wednesday's OTA session. "Anybody who looks at the situation would say, 'Well, this should've been taken care of a long time ago.' For whatever reason, it hasn't, so I understand his frustration."
Kiwanuka last month signed a three-year, $16.5 million extension, which served as a point of frustration for Umenyiora, who's entrenched in the final season of a seven-year, $41 million contract that he signed in 2005. Umenyiora (set to earn just under $4 million in 2012) says the Giants last month furnished him with a new offer he described as "half" the size of Kiwanuka's new deal. Umenyiora bashed the Giants for making him look like a "greedy pig" for refusing that offer.
"I looked at what he said," Kiwanuka said. "There was nothing that he said that was outright disrespectful. I mean, Osi and me, we have a relationship. I know that if something came up I felt was out of line, I'd have called him up and we'd have handled it. But I didn't think there was anything that went that far."
Osi's contract scuffle will come to an end someday. Until then, we'll continue to chronicle his unhappiness.
