You can question Santonio Holmes about certain things, but certainly not his self-belief and confidence that he is and can continue to be great. After inking a new five-year $50 million dollar contract last week, Holmes took to Twitter to post a photo of himself celebrating the windfall with a bottle of empty Cristal. Surprise, surprise, some members of the media were put off by the photo. Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps because the NFL was not yet one week removed from still being mired in an ugly lockout that left fans impatient and frustrated? Perhaps it was the fact that so many folks are still struggling economically? Who knows, but I sure as hell would celebrate with something indulgent like that if I ever had just secured millions of guaranteed money. You probably would too. Maybe not champagne, but in some way.
Anyway, Holmes has done and said all the right things since being traded from the Pittsburgh Steelers to the New York Jets just before the 2010 NFL Draft. His teammates and coaches clearly believe in him as a player and a leader, so it's not as if Holmes' picture was another example of him 'not getting it' or anything like that. Because of that, I applaud him for his response to whether he had any reservations about posting the photo during his interview with The Michael Kay Show on ESPN Radio New York. Here's what he had to say:
"Not at all, I didn't think twice about what nobody would care about it. I signed a $50 million dollar contract, I was excited, my friend brought it into my house, and it was something to entertain the fans. No one heard from me the whole time that that had been going on, and all I did was put a picture up on there. And it was the greatest picture that everybody thought that touched the market, and it made front page of the New York Times. I didn't think it would do that, I just asked my cousin to take a picture of me and we tweeted it -- this is what it feels like."
Perhaps a bit abrasive at the outset, but there's absolutely nothing wrong or out of touch with his general point that he was rightfully stoked about just getting paid so handsomely. Congrats to Holmes on the new contract, now earn that coin with a great preseason and 2011!