Mike Celizic

Tiki Barber might be doing more to turn the New York Giants into a winner now that he’s retired than he did last year when he was the most versatile back in the NFL. The season hasn’t even started, and already he’s turning quarterback Eli Manning into a leader.

Last year, Barber, who’s gone on to a career with NBC (NBC is a partner in MSNBC), was the acknowledged leader of a team that started 6-2 and ended 2-6, and he helped accomplish that dreary disappointment through a truly uninspiring lack of example. Even as he was piling up 2,000 all-purpose yards, he undermined his coach and, by announcing his pending retirement in mid-season, didn’t do anything to help the focus of the team.

But over the weekend, he started to make amends, providing the team and Manning with the fighting words Barber didn't provide last year. During a celebrity halftime appearance in the booth at a recent exhibition game, he said Manning was "comical" in his efforts to verbally inspire the team last year and questioned his ability to make clutch plays.

Barber wasn’t saying a lot that local fans and media haven’t been thinking — frequently out loud. In his third year, Manning, who has yet to be the second coming of his brother Peyton, was sometimes very good and at other times looked like he was channeling Vinny Testaverde.

Fans and media can be expected to say such things. But when the team’s former star says them, it’s a lot more serious.

What’s impressed everyone is how Manning reacted. He didn’t wince, didn’t cry, didn’t whine. Instead, he brushed Barber’s broadside off like a bit of lint, barely worthy of his notice. He took it not like a victim, but a leader.

Manning got off his first shots Monday during his weekly appearance on Michael Kay’s show on ESPN Radio in New York. Reacting calmly and almost with disdain, he dismissed Barber’s whining before finishing his segment with an impressively honest analysis of where he and the team stood halfway through the exhibition season. Unlike last year, when everything he said seemed to come from the Alex Rodriguez pre-scripted handbook, he sounded like a man who knew what he was doing, like a man who is in charge of himself and his team.

He continued his counter-assault on Tuesday, taking Barber on almost with glee.

"It’s just one of those deals. I’m not going to lose any sleep about what Tiki has to say," Manning said, according to the Associated Press. "I guess I could have questioned his leadership skills last year with calling out the coach and having articles about him retiring in the middle of the season, and he’s lost the heart (to play).

"As a quarterback you’re reading that your running back has lost the heart to play the game and it’s about the 10th week," Manning said. "I can see that a little bit at times. But I’m not going to get concerned. I’m going to go out there and play ball."

As a fan or a teammate, that’s exactly what you wanted to hear from Manning.

MORE FROM NFL

NFL Section Front

Broncos buck trend, beat Giants Romo, Austin help ’Boys gobble up Raiders Packers able to feast on overmatched Lions Pompei: Like it or not, Lions to stay on Thanksgiving NFL Network accidentally airs coach's curse words McDaniels’ trash talk strikes chord across NFL   Slideshow: Top plays from Week 12 Unbeaten Saints seek signature win vs. Pats PFT’s Picks: Colts, Saints to finally taste defeat   PFTV Video: Possible coaching change for Jets NFL Section Front   Add NFL headlines to your news reader: