Michael Irvin told me to start Reggie Wayne this weekend on my fantasy football team. I openly called him an "idiot" and kept Wayne on my bench. Regrettably, Wayne went on to tally 138 yards receiving and score three touchdowns.
This was the first time I was ever mad at myself for not listening to Michael Irvin. Don't hold your breath for it to happen again.
With Irvin's track record in the game of life, it's a wonder Tiki Barber didn't heed Irvin's advice recently.
Earlier last week, Irvin blasted Barber for announcing his retirement from pro football, effective at the end of the season. He said Barber was "quitting" instead of "retiring" and went on to doubt Barber as a leader and role model for younger teammates.
Barber responded on his Tuesday night radio show, "The Barber Shop," that his critics were "idiots" because they had never consulted him, his Giants teammates or his coaches about the decision.
"Don't make blanket assumptions about it," Barber said after his team's Monday night victory over the Irvin's NFL alma mater, the Dallas Cowboys.
He was even able to work the word "facetiously" into his rant. Outside of everything else, that might just define the difference between Tiki Barber and Michael Irvin. But I'll avoid that topic.
Most rational human beings would agree that Irvin is not in any place to criticize Barber as a person or an athlete. Irvin's arrival in a mink suit for his trial for cocaine possession in March 1996 put his relative sanity on the public stage. Several more times since then, Irvin has put himself in situations for further drug accusations to come out. He will forever be defined by these transgressions, regardless of his career as a television analyst.
While Irvin was making a name for himself as the king of poor decisions, Barber graduated from the University of Virginia's Commerce School, has supported any number of charities and causes and is writing books for children.
But that isn't necessarily the story here. The differences between Michael Irvin and Tiki Barber are well-documented, and Barber adequately and rightfully responded to Irvin's comments last week.
The story is the difference between athletes who define success only "on the field" and athletes for whom success on the field is just the beginning.
For Irvin, a Super Bowl championship is the greatest accomplishment any human being could ever achieve. Luckily, he is not an athlete who retired without winning "the big one." Though his career probably won't merit a place in the Hall of Fame, at least Irvin can say that he has a ring. And retirement doesn't mean that his belief in the supremacy of accomplishments on the football field has disappeared. In fact, it was probably that belief that spurred ESPN to hire him as an analyst.
Barber, on the other hand, has spoken openly about his goals off the field, and while most people were surprised when he announced his retirement, very few faulted him.
Ultimately, those who fault him may simply be jealous. Though it is evident Barber enjoys competition on the field, he refuses to let his football career define him. There are plenty of future endeavors for Tiki Barber.
Sadly, Michael Irvin isn't the only athlete who equates success in life to success on the field -- you don't have to look very far to find others. This is the main reason why we've had such problems lately with performance enhancing supplements.
More unusual are athletes like Barber, who see that success in this world can extend outside the sidelines. Athletes like him overcome the blinder of competition to find more to life than wins, losses or championships.
The problem with sports in the modern era is that so few athletes perceive anything to be as glorious as competition on the field. A championship is the ultimate goal -- careers are a failure without one. And if an athletic career is a failure, then, for many, a life is a failure.
More than anything else, this phenomenon is pretty sad. Many athletes use the decades after their careers to imagine what could have been or continuously relive what was. And if you think about it, this mindset extends well beyond professional sports. In fact, it likely characterizes your high school quarterback.
In the NFL record books, Michael Irvin may be a better football player than Tiki Barber. He certainly won that elusive championship. He won a couple, in fact.
But it goes without saying that the sporting world would be better with more athletes like Tiki Barber. Athletes like that contribute so much more than just another guy to root for on Sunday. They keep a semblance of reality in the world of sports and remind us that a game is really just a game.
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