“Yeah, um, well, I mean, I just don’t get it. I don’t understand the rules,” Giants CB Prince Amukamara told the Newark Star-Ledger’s Mike Garafalo about the above footage of teammate Jason Pierre-Paul throwing him head-first into an ice tub. “I mean, I’m not a rookie anymore, so I don’t know why I’m getting thrown in the tub. I know it’s all love.” Amukamara, an object of ridicule amongst teammates for some time, doesn’t seem to have the support of Col. Tom Coughlin, with the Giants head coach more concerned about a breach in confidentiality than anything smacking of hazing. From Newsday’s Tom Rock :
“I’m going to look into it, I’m going to talk to the parties involved,” Coughlin said. “As I’m understanding it, there were some parts of it that were inappropriate.”
Michael Boley, Bruce Johnson, Terrell Thomas and Chris Canty are visible in the video, which closes with Canty asking the camera operator — who he calls Steve and is presumably punter Weatherford — to see the footage.
Had it ended there, the incident likely would have gone unnoticed by Coughlin. But then Weatherford posted it on Twitter.
“No way anything that occurs within this family or within this group should be a part of any kind of social media aspect,” Coughlin said, sounding more irked that the video was posted than he was at the incident itself. “I’m going to address that strongly because I’ve spent a little time on that this preseason and I’ll look into it further.”
Esteemed sociologist Mike Golic has weighed in on this incident, pronouncing it “a non-story”, but helpfully adding, “hazing can sometimes get out of hand”. If the NFL ever needs help completing a disingenuous anti-bullying video, perhaps Golic and Coughlin can lecture tomorrow’s leaders on the importance of not getting caught.