New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora wants out of New York, and his reasons will be found in a sworn affadavit that will be filed next month.
ESPN.com reports that Umenyiora is claiming that Giants general manager Jerry Reese promised him before the the 2008-09 NFL season that they would renegotiate his contract and that Reese did not keep his promise. Umenyiora's affadavit will be part of the NFL players' antitrust lawsuit against the league.
"In early April 2008, approximately two weeks before the start of the New York Giants offseason conditioning program, I, Osi Umenyiora, had a meeting with the general manager of the New York Giants, Mr. Jerry Reese," Umenyiora said in his testimony, according to the website.
"After about an hour of discussing my current contract, as well as the contracts of other defensive ends currently playing in the National Football League, Mr. Reese told me that two years from the start of the 2008 league year, if I was currently playing at a high level, we'd either renegotiate my current contract so that it would be equal to that of the top five defensive ends playing or I would be traded to a team that would do that."
Umenyiora said that Reese told him before he left the meeting that he was "an honest and church-going man and that he would not lie."
Umenyiora, who has constantly sought a contract extention with a higher salarly from the Giants and has yet to receive one, appears to be on his way out of New York unless the issue is resolved. He recently moved out of his home in New Jersey and plans to live in Atlanta permanently.
