Tom Coughlin heard what Plaxico Burress had to say about him this week. He’s just choosing to ignore it.
Burress described his relationship with the Giants coach as “ambivalent” in an interview this week and criticized Coughlin’s coaching style.
“I don’t pay any attention to it,” Coughlin said last night at Yankee Stadium. “It is what it is. Maybe he’s sending me along a badge of honor. How do I know?”
The former Giants receiver is looking for a job after his release from prison, but it does not sound like a reunion with the Giants is in his future.
“My situation in New York, me and my coach, had an ambivalent relationship to say the least,” Burress said in an interview with ESPN. “Some things that I didn’t agree with, with the way he went about things. And the only way to show my way was to just rebel. Is that who I am? No.”
Coughlin attended last night’s Yankees-Rangers game because his 7-year-old grandson, Dylan, was an honorary batboy for the Yankees. Chris Snee, the Giants guard and Coughlin’s son-in-law, was with him.
When he was first asked about Burress, Coughlin wished him well.
“As I’ve said many times, I’ll stay with the same line: I hope he gets some normalcy in his life and has a chance to spend some time with his family and that he gets to know his kids once again,” he said. “His wife has done a tremendous job of holding that family together for the last two years. She deserves some help.”
Like most NFL coaches, Coughlin is getting frustrated with the ongoing lockout and is waiting for the day he can get back to coaching his team.
“I don’t know if it’s unhappy, but I don’t feel fulfilled,” Coughlin said. “I don’t feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I keep looking around me to make sure there’s no one getting ahead.”
As the lockout drags on, the team’s preparation plan keeps getting altered. Coughlin said there is a date that the lockout needs to be settled by for the Giants to have their normal training camp at SUNY-Albany. If it gets too close to when students begin the fall semester there, the Giants will conduct camp at their facility in East Rutherford, N.J.
“We’re getting anxious,” Coughlin said. “We’ve seen so much time come and go. I try not to look back at our rookies, the fact that we haven’t even had the chance to teach them what our expectation level is. These guys are being hurt more than anyone else.”