If new Giants wide receiver Brandon Marshall was on the team last year, would the much ballyhooed boat incident in Miami ever have taken place?
"You know what? No, it doesn't happen. Well, I can't say that because everyone is different, but I would have been against that," Marshall said Thursday on Good Morning Football. "Partly because my pain, I've been in the league for so long and I've never made the playoffs. For me, I'm a guy I'm in Year 11 and I'm all in because I know this opportunity does not come around often. But then you have younger guys.
"See, when I was younger, when I first got in the league, the first couple years, it was about me proving that I could play in the NFL. And then once you prove that, then it's like, *'Oh, you can make money' * Then after that it's like, 'Oh, we're supposed to win here, right?'"
I like Marshall and appreciate his willingness to tell the truth in difficult situations, especially last year during a Jets implosion. However, this is kind of ridiculous and I think Marshall knows it, too. He caught himself a little by saying I can't say that because everyone is different and really, I would find it hard to believe he could stop a handful of guys on their day off from flying to Miami.
People conveniently like to forget that Victor Cruz, a Super Bowl champion, was also on that boat trip. Cruz was on a team that backed into the playoffs as a wild card and beat the Patriots in February 2012. While he expressed regret for the boat trip retroactively, that was likely because he was caving to some public pressure. Cruz is a good person and, at the time, it was the right thing to say.
I would still like to meet the person who turns down a jet ride to Miami beach to hang out with celebrities you idolize (and Justin Bieber) on your day off after four months of really hard work. They were still back in time. It was a manufactured controversy from a few bad apples in a media market who have the largest megaphones and yet we are still here playing what-if.
Marshall might be good for Beckham -- that is the prevailing question heading into his first year with the Giants -- but rewriting history isn't helping anyone. Mostly because it's impossible.
