How Barber can easily walk away from the NFL

	Even though he is averaging 5.2 yards per carry this year, Giants running back Tiki Barber said he will retire after the season. Al Tielemans/SI
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NEW YORK -- How many more weeks of this can we take? Mike Vick throwing for four touchdowns and winning. Brian Westbrook running for 100 yards and catching passes for 100 more and losing. Joey Harrington throwing for 414 yards, and the Steelers throwing for 433 more -- and both teams losing. Matt Hasselbeck having his knee rolled into, clouding his immediate future, and Seattle getting routed at home. The Raiders getting off the schneid. Ronde Barber  outplaying his brother for the first time in a while, running back two interceptions of Donovan McNabb for touchdowns in a Bucs win.

It's been an interesting week for the Barbers. "I'm trying to take some of the headlines away from my brother,'' Ronde said, driving home after the bizarre 23-21 win over Philly. "My mom came to the game today, and I said to her afterward, 'How many touchdowns did Tiki have today?'"

Ronde's twin, the Giants' running back, was headed for the Monday-night game in Dallas while the Bucs were winning this weird one. It's not often Ronde can joke about outshining his brother, especially this week. With all due respect to the transcendent performance by Vick, the defending Super Bowl champs falling to 2-4 and the Eagles losing their third game in a month on the last play of the game, let's start with the biggest story of the week: the most productive back in the game announcing he will retire after the season.

The revealing New York Times story on Tiki Barber's impending retirement was on the newsstands for an hour or two early last Wednesday morning when Barber's cell phone and texting devices started blowing up. "Most people won't understand this,'' Barber said, returning my text with a phone call, "but the people who know me won't be surprised. You aren't, are you?"

No. I was surprised at the timing, though. Barber had no intention for it to come out now, but Times reporter John Branch just heard too much while tailing the Barbers around Manhattan recently.

This is no ploy, no money grab by a great player whose cap number is more than a million less than LaMont Jordan's and Deuce McAllister's. Nope. You know the Barber retirement thing is no joke when you hear him use the word "Condi.'' You know, "Condi,'' as in the nickname for Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State. He was talking about having lunch with her at the State Department in a riff about how interesting the other side of his life is. He does work for the Fox morning show, Fox and Friends, and hosts an in-season Sirius NFL Radio show with his brother and an offseason general interest and political talk show. His first guest for the latter show last spring was John McCain.

"I'll tell you what was fun,'' he said. "I interviewed Bin Laden's mistress on my radio show. I got a good view into Osama's world, and what he's like as a person. That was pretty exciting. I interviewed the prime minister of Iraq. I interviewed John McCain, John Kerry. It's cool to know I can do what I want and what is enjoyable to me.''