After signing a five-year, $36 million contract with the New Orleans Saints last week, tight end Coby Fleener trashed the effort of some of his former Indianapolis Colts teammates, during a conference call with the media on Friday:
“I think it’s one of those situations where it really reveals character,” Fleener said. “The guys that kept fighting through it — knowing that we may not have our star quarterback on the field but we still have a chance to win the game — those are the guys you want kind of in your corner. And the other guys, it becomes pretty apparent that they’re along for the ride.”
Fleener also took a jab at the Indianapolis front office for showing a lack of interest in signing him this offseason:
“The Colts’ lack of interest and the Saints’ interest made going to New Orleans an easy choice,” Fleener said during the interview.
Well on Sunday night, Fleener’s former Colts teammate Jerrell Freeman — who signed a three-year, $12 million deal with the Chicago Bears on Saturday — responded to the comments via text with WTHR’s Bob Kravitz.
The veteran linebacker said that he “despises guys like that (Fleener)”, that Fleener “didn’t have the guts“, that the comments are “what little girls do, talk about you when you’re not around“, and that the comments are a “bitch move“:
Here’s what he texted me Sunday night (and I cleaned up some of the language):
“Fleener, he didn’t have the (guts),’’ Freeman wrote (sort of). “That (bleep) pisses me off. And he must’ve been looking in the mirror when he did the interview.
“I despise guys like that. That’s what little girls do, talk about you when you’re not around. I’m a grown man. If I see something I don’t like, I’m going to go have a face-to-face convo with that player/players and we are going to get an understanding! I feel like I had a hand in building what’s over there (in Indianapolis), so he’s (bleeping) on me, too.
“That’s a bitch move.
“You can print all that, brotha!’’
Oh, yeah, I printed all that, brotha.
Crazy. It will be interesting to see if any more former (or current) Colts want to chime in on this one.
[WTHR]