Getty New York Giants right tackle Evan Neal during the 2022-23 playoffs.
New York Giants supporters were furious after right tackle Evan Neal ripped “fair-weather” fans fans and boobirds following the Week 4 loss to the Seattle Seahawks — and NYC ESPN radio cohost Don La Greca embodied much of the base during a viral response on The Michael Kay Show on October 4. uSTADIUM shared the footage on X, formerly Twitter.
Wild rant by @DonLagreca on @ENeal73’s comments 🗣️🔥
Don says Evan should shut up because fans pay his salary, the #Giants should actually cut him and he’s a “piece of a garbage.” 😳
(🎥 @ESPNRadio)
After reading Neal’s comments — in which he patronized Giants fans as people who “flip hot dogs and hamburgers” — La Greca seemingly became incensed. “Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?” he said, incredulously. “I’d cut his ass! I would!”
“How dare you? How dare you?!” La Greca shouted as cohost Peter Rosenberg just watched in silence. “These people pay your salary! They pay an obnoxious amount of money to park! An obnoxious amount of money for PSLs! To sit there and watch this pap and you call them hamburger flippers? What, you’re so much better?! I’d rather have a guy that’s flipping hamburgers block than your piece of garbage ass! Who the hell are you to talk to fans like that? You piece of garbage!”
“I hate when players do that,” he continued after taking a second. “You’re not above us. What, because you happen to play a sport? You think that you’re better than me? You’re better than the people that pay your salary? These Giants fans were here before you and they’ll be here after your sorry ass is cut. What a piece of human trash.”
La Greca concluded by saying, “I don’t want to hear some apology” from Neal, who’s in his second year with the Giants after getting drafted seventh overall in 2022. If it were up to him, he said, the former first-round selection would be “done” in New York. “I would cut his fat ass!” The radio host screamed.
Giants’ Evan Neal Quickly Apologizes for Bashing Booing Fans on Social Media
Well, whether La Greca wants one or not, Neal quickly did apologize on X, about five and a half hours after Darryl Slater’s article containing his direct quotes was published Wednesday, October 4, on NJ.com.
“I am wrong for lashing out at the fans who are just as passionate and frustrated as I am,” Neal, 23, posted Wednesday night on X. “I let my frustrations in my play [plus] desire to win get the best of me. I had no right to make light of anyone’s job and I deeply regret the things I said.”
Neal added: “We are working day in and day out to grow as a team and this was an unnecessary distraction. I apologize.”
Evan Neal’s Initial Comments Toward ‘Sheep’ Giants Fans
Neal told Slater that he raised his arms in a gesture to fans during the 24-3 defeat to the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football. “They were booing us, so I said, ‘Boo louder!’” he said.
Continuing: “Why would a lion concern himself with the opinion of a sheep? … The person that’s commenting on my performance, what does he do? Flip hot dogs and hamburgers somewhere?”
Also in his story, Slater relayed Neal’s comments about booing fans.
“That just further shows that people are fair-weather,” Neal said, according to Slater. “A lot of fans are bandwagoners. I mean, I get it: They want to see us perform well. And I respect all of that. But no one wants us to perform well more than we do. And how can you say you’re really a fan when we’re out there battling our asses off — and the game wasn’t going well — but the best you can do is boo your home team? So how much of a fan are you, really?”
Neal, whose 42.5 grade from Pro Football Focus ranks fourth from the bottom among tackles, eventually acknowledged that it’s “human” to let fans get under your skin, adding that “most critics really don’t understand the game of football to the level that we understand it in this building.”
Booing fans might be something new to Neal, who never experienced sustained losing when he was at Alabama. The Crimson Tide were a combined 37-4 during his three-year tenure, with an undefeated record and a CFB National Championship over Ohio State in 2020.