Why, Plaxico?
Why not simply shut up and get on with your life?
Some athletes simply cannot help themselves.
In the case of Plaxico Burress’ vitriolic rants directed at Giants management, head coach Tom Coughlin and quarterback Eli Manning published in the upcoming issue of Men’s Journal, this is an Exhibit A example of an athlete who doesn’t get it.
In the bombshell interview, some of Burress’ points are salient, such as how New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg made an example out of him, which is true.
But in ripping the Giants, Coughlin and Manning, Burress couldn’t have advertised his cluelessness more emphatically and effectively if he’d flown a banner over MetLife Stadium on game day.
If you’re Burress and you’ve just served your 20 months in prison for gun possession and you want to start fresh and resume your NFL career, torching the team that you actually screwed over because of your irresponsible carelessness isn’t a very productive way to move on with your life.
Since he signed with the Jets, Burress has talked a good game about how much he’s looking forward to his fresh start with his new team. Now, two days away from his first game since 2008, he’s burdened himself with unnecessary distraction by taking a walk on the low road.
This doesn’t do him or his new team any good as they prepare to open the season against the Cowboys Sunday night at MetLife Stadium.
What’s most absurd about Burress’ assassination of the Giants, Coughlin and Manning is that it comes out just a few weeks after all of those feel-good reports he fed us around the time of the Jets-Giants preseason game about his supposed amicable meeting of “closure” with the Giants back in July.
Asked yesterday about why he found it necessary to napalm the Giants, Burress said there “comes a time when you get things off your chest and speak about it at that time and put it behind you.
“I met with everybody over there and I think everything went well,” he said.
How well do you think it would have gone with Coughlin in that meeting if he knew about Burress calling him out for being “not a real positive coach” and ripping him for having no “concern” about his well being from the accidental gun wound?
How well do you think the meeting would have gone with Giants co-owner John Mara if he was aware of Burress saying team management “didn’t have the courage” to tell reporters it ordered him not to practice during the 2007-08 season because of his injuries and “let the media tear me apart, saying I was dogging practice, that I wasn’t a team player, all this (bleep)?”
Perhaps the smartest person in the Giants organization was Manning, who didn’t take part in that hypocritical Burress meeting of “closure.”
Burress, in the article, claimed he was Manning’s “biggest supporter, even days he wasn’t on, ‘cause I could sense he didn’t have thick skin,” and then he chided him for not calling him or visiting him in prison.
Burress has come across as humble since he became a Jet. Humble suits Burress much better than bitter does. There’s a tattoo etched in dark ink and written in fancy lettering across Burress’ upper back that serves as a message pertaining to his life and it reads:
Everything happens for a reason
In the case of this senseless Burress rant, there was no reason for it to happen.
mcannizzaro@nypost.com