00:00So the New York Giants decided to have a team meeting organized by John Harbaugh, the new head coach,
00:05so that everybody could clear the air about the recent dust-up between Abdul-Cardir, their second-year defensive player,
00:12and, of course, Jackson Dart, their second-year starting quarterback.
00:15After Jackson Dart, as you know by now, introduced President Trump at a rally in New York,
00:20Abdul-Cardir went on social media and complained about it, then he deleted the tweet,
00:24then the two men apparently spoke offline, and they're all good.
00:28Then there's been some conversations in the Giants locker room,
00:31and it became this really stupid juvenile nonsense going on four months before the season even starts.
00:38So John Harbaugh got wind of it, obviously, and thought it'd be smart to have a players' meeting with the
00:44coach,
00:45obviously, in the room, not a players-only meeting, so everybody could clear the air,
00:48let some of the team veterans say their piece, let Jackson Dart say what he had to say,
00:53let Abdul-Cardir say what he had to say, so we could squash this and move forward, right?
00:58Now, the gist of the conversations, as has been reported by Giant Insiders,
01:04is that veterans did get up and said, look, we're a family here.
01:08Doesn't mean we all have to like each other 24-7, but if we have an issue with one another,
01:13let's not run to social media to complain about it.
01:15Let's handle it internally.
01:17Well, I think that's very mature.
01:18I don't think everybody would agree that had Abdul-Cardir not gone on social media
01:22and had called Jackson Dart, they could have talked like men,
01:26they could have hammered it out, and none of us would have known anything about it.
01:30And then the only people upset with Jackson Dart would have been people that just don't like Trump
01:34and were good with all that, right?
01:36But one little thing happened on the way to Oz that I find interesting,
01:42that I think is fair for me to call the New York Giants a dysfunctional football team.
01:47And I always say things stink from the head down,
01:50so this is a John Harbaugh thing now that I think needs to be addressed.
01:55We all agree that this became a mountain out of a mohill
01:59because of the byplay between Jackson Dart and Abdul-Cardir.
02:03Both men are allowed to have their opinions, both men are allowed to say everything they said,
02:07but obviously it played out publicly, which is why we know about it and why we're talking about it.
02:11So when John Harbaugh decided to have a meeting about it,
02:15how do you have that meeting and Abdul-Cardir not be at that meeting?
02:22Now, I want to be very fair about this.
02:24This is not Abdul-Cardir's fault.
02:26Abdul-Cardir asked for and received permission to have an excused absence
02:32from the OTA they're involved with right now for, I believe, religious reasons.
02:36I believe Wednesday was a Muslim holiday.
02:39I don't claim to know about it, so I'm not going to speak on it.
02:41No, it was.
02:43Yes, it was.
02:44I believe it's the exact reason.
02:46I know a lot of people were mocking Wemby last night for the outfit he wore to the game
02:50because it looked like a long dress.
02:52I believe that was out of respect to his religious beliefs, and that's religious garb.
02:56I believe that's the story behind that.
02:58Yes, that is correct.
02:59Okay, so if Abdul-Cardir went to the Giants in advance, which clearly he did,
03:05and said to them, Wednesday is an important religious holiday for my family.
03:10I would like to have that day off from OTA so I could observe the holiday.
03:14Well within his right to ask for that.
03:16The New York Giants, as every team would, granted him the day off.
03:20That's all above board.
03:21That's all great.
03:21But if you know you've already given Abdul-Cardir the day off, which they clearly knew
03:27because they gave him the day off, why would you schedule the team meeting
03:32to address this specific issue of him and Jackson Dart without him being one of the guys
03:40inside that locker room or room?
03:42You could have waited until today to have that get-together, or yesterday to have that get-together.
03:48And again, I know Giant fans believe in the concept that John Harbaugh is going to bring
03:53them back to prominence, and they're going to win 10-plus games.
03:57And I agree with John Harbaugh wanting to clear the air amongst the guys.
04:01I think that's a smart decision.
04:03But you cannot do that if one of the two principles involved in the story from Jump Street is not
04:10physically in the room when you're clearing the air.
04:13Because nobody else had an issue with Jackson Dart publicly.
04:17I'm sure some guys probably questioned it privately, but not publicly.
04:21It only became an issue because Abdul-Cardir did it publicly, and then all the fallout from that.
04:27So how do you have a meeting, and Abdul-Cardir isn't in the meeting?
04:32No, you're absolutely right, Craig.
04:34You're absolutely right.
04:35And I don't think he understands, for the public perception, how that ends up reading what you
04:41just laid out there.
04:42Because we know, based on what just, because we don't know these people's hearts, we don't
04:46know them.
04:47But it reads as, Jackson Dart was pro-Trump, Abdul-Cardir was anti-Trump, and they had an
04:52issue over it.
04:52That's how it reads.
04:53And now it looks like, well, Harbaugh now basically took a side by having a meeting when
04:58the anti-Trump guy wasn't there.
05:00That's how it reads.
05:01That's how it reads.
05:02And it can be whatever it's going to be.
05:04But how it looks is, Harbaugh agrees with Dart, so let's talk about it when the guy who
05:09doesn't agree with us is there.
05:11That's how it looks like to me.
05:13And that's not great for unity.
05:15For unity, it's not great.
05:16No.
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