Osi: NFL players should be more like Tim Tebow - New York Daily News (blog)

When Osi Umenyiora returned from an offseason trip to Nigeria, he was appalled to learn what was happening around the NFL. So many arrests. So much bad behavior.
 
That wouldn’t have happened, he said, if more players were like Tim Tebow.
 
“I know that everybody likes to make fun of Tim Tebow and talk about him, but he sets an outstanding example for people,” Umenyiora said. “I think if more people would focus and try to be like him and carry themselves the way he does, I think things would be better.”
 
Following the example of the Jets backup quarterback and devout Christian certainly couldn’t hurt, considering the rash of players â€" some of them high profile â€" who have been busted this offseason. So far, 31 players have been arrested for a string of DUIs and assaults since the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI in February â€" a fact Umenyiora called “ridiculous”.
 
The list of offenders included Giants tackle David Diehl, who was busted for DUI in Queens back in May; Vikings running back Adrian Peterson , who allegedly resisted arrest in a Houston nightclub; and Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant, who allegedly assaulted his own mother. And that doesn’t even include the BountyGate scandal that has embarrassed the NFL.
 
Umenyiora, speaking at M&M World in Times Square where he was helping to unveil M&M's new personalized printer, said it’s up to veterans like him and Tebow to take a stand to “set a better example” and “really show people how to behave” so the NFL’s crime wave can stop.
 
“For the life of me, I can’t understand it,” Umenyiora said. “It’s ridiculous, to be honest with you. People need to be more focused and more grateful for what it is that they have. Coming from where I came from (on his trip to Nigeria) and seeing what I saw, all that poverty and people who have nothing, they would literally cut off both legs to have the opportunity these people have. And to be messing around like that, man, it’s really unfortunate.”
 
One person who can’t be blamed, Umenyiora said, is NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has been harsh in handing out discipline to players who get in trouble.
 
“You can’t blame the Commissioner,” Umenyiora said. “He’s bringing down the hammer every time. But obviously people don’t like to listen. They’ll learn sooner or later.”

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