Another upset receiver
By Brian Doyle
Plaxico Burress is doing his best Chad Johnson impression as he sits out at Giant mini-camp. Burress is unhappy with his deal which still has 3 years remaining ($10.5M). This coupled with Jeremy Shockey’s unhappiness with his role and the Giant front office put some question marks for a team coming off of a Super Bowl stunner.
Veteran leadership has expressed their anger in Burress sitting out. Center Shaun O’Hara stated “Either you are with us or you are against us,” between practices. “And I think the players are doing a good job of focusing in on their daily tasks and their jobs, and as long as we all continue to do that, this team will succeed.”
Burress feels he s underpaid, which based on the new contracts for New England’s Randy Moss and Dallas’ Terrell Owens (both for three years in the neighborhood of $27M) might be true, but his teammates still feel he should be on the field with him. It is important to note that Burress has been at meetings and head coach Tom Coughlin has not been to concerned stating “Naturally I want everybody on the field, We anticipated the camp being the camp. We want everybody out here. The quarterback wants everybody out here. The quarterback wants to throw to people; he wants to work with people. That is what a mini-camp is for.”. He also commented that this is a time that players often hold out to renegotiate. Coughlin’s calm, easygoing demeanor to the Burress situation might be related to his own 4 year, $21M contract extension.
Burress’ absence allows for more repetitions for Super Bowl hero David Tyree and second-year player Steve Smith.
A Champ retires
Michael Strahan will not keep the Giants waiting for his arrival at training camp this year, he has decided to retire. This deprives Giant fans of the annual ritual of “Will he, Won’t he?” in terms of his arrival at camp, but it does provide the Giants an opportunity to plan for a future without him. Also, it allows the fans to celebrate the great career he had with the team.
He is coming off of a strong season in which he started 15 games and had 9 sacks and 141.5 in the regular season for his career. He is also the NFL record holder with 22.5 in 2001. Strahan wanted to let his teamates know before they began to report for mini-camp.
So how do you replace a great? Well it is never easy, but here are a few of the candidates:
Jason Tuck, 4th year pro who had 10 sacks last year while playing both end and tackle for the Giants.
Mathias Kiwanuka, a 2006 first round pick, who last year made the move from DE to strongside LB before getting hurt in Detroit on November 18. Will the coaching staff look to move him back to end?
They are a couple of the contenders to fill the big man’s shoes, but look for others to challenge for Strahan’s vacated position.