Osi Umenyiora To Return To Giants … Without New Contract.

 ~ The New York Football Giants could use a dose of good news and maybe Osi Umenyiora deciding that he’s ready to play football is a start. The two-time Pro Bowl defensive end let the Associated Press know that he will be returning to the Giants and start practicing without the new contract he has publicly been pursuing.

It’s become a very familiar tune for Giants fans whenever Umemyiora starts letting his feelings become known that he wants a better contract. If it’s about respect, he feels the Giants are not giving it to him. According to Umenyiora, they offered to place incentives in his current deal which would pay him $7.1 million over the next two seasons, which he rejected.

“No deal has been reworked,” Umenyiora told the AP. “What has been offered has been unacceptable and shows they don’t really respect the fact I sacrifice my health for the franchise. I will play under my current deal because I love and respect my coaches, my teammates, the fans, and myself. Not for those incentives.”

The keyword in those comments is respect, Umenyiora feels he has not received any. He’s 29 years old and knows that he needs to secure at least one more big-money deal in his career. However, Umenyiora also has been injury prone and has a knee that is questionable at best currently.

Maybe someone in Umenyiora’s corner finally was able to get through to him and let him know that if he wants teams to show him the money, he’s going to have to get on the field and put up the kind of numbers that will earn him that new deal.

 The Giants clearly showed they are not in a hurry to throw money at Umenyiora. They are still loaded at the defensive end position with Justin Tuck and the emerging Jason Pierre-Paul. Umenyiora perhaps sees the writing on the wall that the kind of money he’s looking for can’t be secured from the sidelines complaining to the anyone that is willing to listen to him.

 One of the main gripes Umenyiora has had with the Giants is that he feels their upper management did not keep their word on reworking his contract. We’ll see if he intends to keep his word and play for his teammates, coaches, and the fans.