Eli Apple: Giants not pressuring me to silence my mom

Eli Apple disputed his mom’s belief that the New York Giants are pressuring him to silence his mother from speaking out.

Apple is a rookie cornerback for the Giants, and his mother, Annie, has become quite a personality thanks to her active Twitter account. Annie Apple was an outspoken critic against the Giants for their handling of Josh Brown, and specifically revealed that she was a domestic violence victim, which is why the issue hits her particularly hard.

In a column for SI this week, Annie shared her feeling that the Giants might have been leaning on her son to silence her.

“But I was livid with the Giants, not just because of John Mara’s comments but I was disappointed in the organization because I felt they were leaning heavily on a 21-year-old kid in an effort to control what his mother says. That’s not fair,” Annie Apple wrote.

On Thursday, Eli was asked about his mother’s belief that the Giants are silencing him. He said that was not the case.

“She was a little bit upset and I didn’t have a chance to really talk to her, and I guess throughout that whole thing that’s just how she felt, but I never had a chance to talk to her or anything, so maybe that’s just an assumption of hers that she just felt in her gut,” Eli Apple said Thursday via the New York Daily News. “But it’s definitely false. Nobody’s leaning on me or anything telling me things to tell her. It’s not like that at all. I think the Giants are a class organization, and I’m just happy to be here.”

It’s important to be clear that Annie Apple did not say it was definitive that the Giants were leaning on Eli, but just her feeling. If Eli said anything to her, it could have been on his own simply because her criticism puts him in an awkward spot around his teammates and the front office.

Apple, the No. 10 pick in the draft, has 15 tackles and three passes defended this season.