YOU wanted to hear just a little bit of remorse yesterday from Plaxico Burress when he reported to work. You wanted to hear him say what happened that forced the Giants to suspend him for two weeks and fine him would never happen again.
“I didn’t lose any sleep over it,” Burress said. “Things like that happen.”
“I don’t have any regrets about the decision I made,” Burress said.
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“I took it with a grain of salt and kept on moving,” Burress said.
“Football is the best temporary job I’m gonna have in my life. My family’s gonna be there forever. I feel I made the right decision,” Burress said.
Catch 17: If he is going to have troubles at home, then it appears that he is going to be as much trouble for the Giants as he is for cornerbacks who fear him on the football field.
The world stops for Plaxico Burress whenever a family matter requires his attention. And the Giants – just like the Steelers learned four years ago when he skipped minicamp for Mother’s Day – are not a member of that family when it does.
He went AWOL because he had to take his 21-month-old son Elijah to school. He neglected to call his employer. He is 30 years old. This isn’t any lack of common sense. It’s no sense at all.
It’s never too late to grow up.
“I was being responsible,” Burress said, “just not towards them. I put my child first.”
And put his team and teammates and owners, who just rewarded him with a five-year, $35 million contract right before the season started, last. “Of course I let them down,” Burress said.
Catch 17: The Giants almost certainly can’t defend their Super Bowl championship without him.
Catch 17: You can’t win a Super Bowl with a Problem Child.
Could something like this happen again? “There’s no telling what may happen,” Burress said. “It may be a time I may have to be spontaneous again. . . . I can’t predict the future.”
And if that time comes again?
“I’d probably put in a phone call and deal with it that way,” Burress said.
Progress! Burress was asked what he could tell about the restraining orders his wife Tiffany took out on him in June and August. “There’s nothing to tell about it,” he said.
Fine. His private life is his private life. But a lot of us have plenty going on in our private lives. We still owe it to our employers to be responsible and accountable.
“My job is to go to work and catch footballs,” Burress said.
Of course it is. But this isn’t boxing. He needs Eli Manning to throw him the ball. He needs Tom Coughlin and Kevin Gilbride to call plays for him. He needs the defense to get his quarterback the ball. He needs his special teams to get him favorable field position.
“I’m really not concerned about being a team leader,” Burress said.
Obviously. He has been fined between 40 and 50 times. He blew off the exit meeting after the 2005 playoff loss to Carolina. Etc, etc. “I really don’t know the amount of times, but I do know that I have been fined quite a bit, and some of the demands that they ask me to do, I just don’t meet,” Burress said. “Do I have an excuse for them? No. Maybe I have a problem with time or something, I don’t know.”
Problem Child.
But if Plaxico Burress is not concerned with being a team leader, the least he can do is be a team follower. Follow the leaders. Coughlin has done a wondrous job brainwashing the Giants on the importance of team. “We’re hit and miss sometimes,” Burress said. Their sit-down yesterday morning? “I listened; didn’t really have much to say,” Burress said.
If Burress has a hard time coexisting with Coughlin, he should do himself a favor and everyone else a favor and listen to Antonio Pierce, one of his allies in the locker room. “Everybody doesn’t have to like me; I don’t have to be friends with everybody,” Burress said.
Catch 17: He can’t be the Giants’ T.O.
It is high time for him grow up, to show his team and his teammates that you can have a problem with your child, and not lead everyone to conclude that it is you who is the Problem Child.