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Giants' LB Pierce taken to task for conduct with media

Antonio Pierce's unique method for avoiding questions about the poor play of the New York Giants' defense has found some critics.

Former Giants running back Tiki Barber and former NFL tight end Shannon Sharpe both used their shows on Sirius Satellite Radio to criticize the Giants linebacker for blowing an air horn in the locker room when posed questions about the team's defense over its first two games.

After the Giants' 35-13 loss to the Packers on Sunday, Pierce refused to address the media for four days. Then, on Thursday, whenever asked about the past play of the defense, which gave up 80 points in its first two games, he blew the air horn.


"Now that [the Giants] are struggling, first of all he runs away from it early in the week and now he's refusing to answer questions by being completely disrespectful to a group of people who are just trying to do their job," Barber said on his show, according to the media reports. "That's the job of media, ask the question. And you don't have to answer it. But don't be rude."

Sharpe, on his show, called the behavior "childish" and "totally uncalled for," according to the New York Daily News. "That's ridiculous. Are you 14? Or are you 28, 29, making millions of dollars to play a kid's game? And you act like this?"

Pierce was not amused when reporters relayed Barber and Sharpe's comments to him.

"Do any of them play for the New York Giants?" Pierce said. "Does [Barber] play for us now?"

"[Maybe] if it was the 53 guys in this room that said something or if I came in here and the coaches or someone in the front office [said it]," Pierce said, according to the Daily News. "But anyone that was here knows what I was doing."

The Giants' front office, however, did say something to Pierce. In an e-mail to the Daily News, Pat Hanlon, the Giants' VP of communications, said coach Tom Coughlin and "others in the organization" spoke with Pierce about his behavior.

"In those conversations, Antonio made it clear that he understands that [Thursday's] conduct was inappropriate," Hanlon said in the e-mail, according to the Daily News.

Pierce said he was only having some fun with the media. "I'm sorry the horn scared everybody," he said.

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