The reunion between Eli Manning and Plaxico Burress came two days before the Jets and Giants met last night. The former teammates ran into each other at the movies.
Burress was coming out of “The Smurfs” with his family when he saw Manning and former Giants center Shaun O’Hara. Burress said the two chatted, and they joked last night after the game.
Much was made of Manning not greeting Burress when the wide receiver visited the Giants offices while he was a free agent. Last night, Burress said he did not feel slighted.
“No, not really,” he said. “I didn’t even know if he was in the building or not. I didn’t see a few guys. I didn’t take anything to heart about it or anything like that.”
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The Jets spent the week downplaying the meeting with the Giants, but the game was chippy with lots of post-play pushing and shoving.
The biggest fight of the night came between Jets rookie Muhammad Wilkerson and Giants RB Brandon Jacobs. The two were thrown out of the game in the third quarter when they exchanged punches.
“I can understand it because I think both guys swung at each other,” coach Rex Ryan said. “Our guy swung second. He swung hard but he swung second.”
It was unclear how the scrap started, but both players were in each other faces about five yards behind the line of scrimmage after a Manning completion to Mario Manningham inside the Jets’ 20.
It looked like Wilkerson made the first contact, but then Jacobs hit Wilkerson’s facemask. Wilkerson went back at Jacobs, and soon the two were brawling.
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The Jets lost power at their Florham Park, N.J. headquarters Sunday in the wake of Hurricane Irene. The team used a generator to keep the areas of the building critical to football operations functioning.
The team held meetings there before yesterday’s game. The majority of the team’s business staff will work at MetLife Stadium today.
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Rosters have to be cut to 80 players by 4 p.m. today. That won’t be tough for the Jets, because they only had 81 players on their roster last night.
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NT Sione Pouha (left knee), QB Mark Brunell (right calf), OG Trevor Canfield (left knee), OL Rob Turner (broken right leg) and TE Jeff Cumberland (left hamstring) were held out of last night’s game.
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WR Logan Payne injured his left wrist in the first half and did not return. . . . WR Jeremy Kerley led the Wildcat offense in the second half, rushing for 13 yards on two carries and completing an 18-yard pass to Matthew Mulligan.