UMENYIORA SAYS HE'LL QUIT IF HE DOESN'T START NEXT SEASON

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Umenyiora Says He Will Quit Football If He Doesn’t Start: DE Osi Umenyiora said yesterday on WFAN that if he does not start in 2010, he will quit football.

“I’m not going to be a back up player, I can promise you that,” said Umenyiora. “I’ll stop playing football before I do that ever again. This has been just the worst offseason of my entire life. I can’t even think of a time when things were this bad during the offseason. You’re supposed to be relaxing, but I can’t relax because all I can think of is the things that took place last season, you understand? So for me it’s not something that I’m going to do. If I’m asked to come back there and do that then I’ll just stop playing football.”

Umenyiora was benched during the 2009 season in favor of DE Mathias Kiwanuka. After the season, one of Umenyiora’s biggest supporters, defensive line coach Mike Waufle, was fired. It’s obviously been an emotional period for the two-time Pro Bowl defensive end who struggled last season.

Umenyiora said he has wondered if his time with the Giants is over. “Did it go through my mind? Obviously, yes,” said Umenyiora. “Obviously you come through a situation where you’ve been here for a long time and you’ve won Super Bowls, you’ve been to the Pro Bowl a couple of times, then things like that start happening, you start being benched and they say you’re coming in on the third down rush, I think it almost seemed like the writing was on the wall at that particular time. I felt like I had worn out my welcome, because for certain people, no matter what happens, they’ll never take them out of the lineup, you understand what I mean? So I felt that way. I felt like maybe it was my last year because of that situation. But you never know man. I hope it’s not. I hope things can be rectified and things can be resolved. But we’ll see.”

According to The Daily News, unidentified Giants’ team sources have said the Giants have no intention of trading or releasing Umenyiora, who is currently signed through the 2012 season.

Umenyiora’s old teammate, Michael Strahan, thinks Umenyiora and the Giants will be fine. “He’ll be back, he’ll be a Giant, he’ll play extremely well next year, I have no doubt in that. Because I know he has too much pride and he has too much talent not to,” Strahan said. “Next season will be a year in which I expect him to do big things because now that knee injury will really be behind him and he can make the mark that he’s made in his previous seasons.”

“I have a lot of love for the team,” said Umenyiora. “I love the Giants. I’ve been there my entire career and I’d love to stay there. I’m under contract with them until 2012 so I can’t sit over here and say with any degree of confidence that I’m not going to be there next year.”

Umenyiora continues to insist he did not have a problem with former Giants’ defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan, who was fired after the season. “Me and Bill had that one problem, we talked about it, we figured it out,” Umenyiora said. “Throughout the whole season, me and Bill didn’t have another problem at all. It’s surprising to me sometimes when I read some of these things that we butted heads throughout the whole season and we were at odds, because after that one incident me and him didn’t have one problem the rest of the season…You can’t blame the defensive coordinator. Obviously he made some bad calls, but if he had the players in place I think you can make up for that. But as team we just didn’t play well at all.”