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Eli Apple May Be Punished for Tweeting During Giants Game

Eli Apple retweeted a post praising Rod Smith for scoring against the Giants. 

Embattled Giants cornerback Eli Apple may face discipline from the team after his tweets during Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys, according to ESPN’s Jordan Raanan

Apple, who was inactive Sunday for the fourth straight game, sent a handful of fairly innocuous tweets during the game but also turned heads by retweeting a post praising Dallas running back Rod Smith for his 81-yard touchdown catch that put the game out of reach. Smith is a former college teammate of Apple’s at Ohio State. One Twitter user pointed out that Apple and Smith are no longer teammates, to which Apple replied “I’ll always be a Buckeye tho.”

Interim head coach Steve Spaguolo said he discussed Apple’s social media usage with him. 

“I had a conversation with Eli about that. I was disappointed,” Spagnuolo said. “I told him I was disappointed. We’ll decide exactly what we do with it. He apologized. We move on from that.”

Veteran cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie wasn’t aware of the tweets before being asked to comment on them. He found the timing problematic but was understanding of Apple’s connection with his former teammate. 

​“Shew, that’s a tough one there, bud,” Rodgers-Cromartie said. “No, I don’t know. They probably have that kind of connection. To do it during a game, that’s probably bad timing, but that’s his brother, his friend, somebody he considers close like that, guys are always retweeting guys they are brothers with. So I can understand a little of it.”

A litany of issues—a film session blow-up, his mother’s brain surgery and a hip injury—have kept the 2016 No. 10 pick off the field since Week 10.