<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Still a rift between Burress and Manning?By TOM CANAVAN, AP Sports WriterJune 14, 2006EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- Eli Manning says he has a good relationship with Plaxico Burress. His No. 1 receiver wasn't talking about it on Wednesday, turning down pleas from the Giants' public relations staff to talk to the media on the opening day of minicamp.Burress hasn't said anything since the Giants were beaten 23-0 by the Carolina Panthers in the opening round of the playoffs.Held without a catch, Burress waved his hands in frustration several times during the game when he felt he was open and Manning didn't get him the ball. The receiver, who was signed as a free agent last year, didn't report to the stadium the following day for a season-ending team meeting.Burress also did not participate in voluntary workouts in the offseason, opting to train in Florida with tight end Jeremy Shockey."You don't have to be best friends with everybody," Manning said after a morning workout Wednesday. "As long as everybody is on the same page and has the same goal of working hard and getting better and winning games, then I think that is fine. We're lockermates. We see each other daily. We have a good relationship."Manning said he has spoken with Burress a few times in recent weeks, addressing nothing specific. He downplayed Burress' onfield antics in the playoff game."He was upset. We didn't have a good game," said Manning, who was 10-for-18 for 113 yards and four interceptions against the Panthers. "Everybody on this team is competitive and wants to win and do well. A lot of people were frustrated and that's how he expressed it."Coach Tom Coughlin said he spoke with Burress about missing the team meeting after the season ended. Coughlin would not comment on what was said.During the morning workout on Wednesday, Manning found Burress with a pass on a slant route, and he hooked up with Shockey on a couple of plays.Shockey showed up for the minicamp sporting a black eye. He blamed it on a training accident in Florida last week.He also said he thought there was plenty of leadership on the team."The older people, like Tiki Barber and Michael Strahan, when those guys talk, those are the guys I listen to, the guys who have been here eight, nine, 10, 11 or 12 years," he said. "Those are the leaders on this team."Center Shaun O'Hara felt too much was being made of Burress."We have a lot of things going on," O'Hara said. "No way on the first day of minicamp are we worried about team chemistry."He also downplayed the absence of Burress and Shockey from the voluntary workouts, saying no one wants to work out with somebody who doesn't want to be there.O'Hara said the players were more interested in Shockey's black eye."I think we were all wondering whether coach gave it to him," O'Hara said.Updated on Wednesday, Jun 14, 2006 5:04 pm EDT</div>http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-g...ov=ap&type=lgns Stuff like this is what separates the Redskins from the rest of the NFL... our team is like a family, anything like this would be out of the question.
Sounds like the media making something out of nothing. Eli says they get along fine. Burress says nothing, media has a field day.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>June 15, 2006EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. ?It took five months, but today wide receiver Plaxico Burress finally shed light on his feelings about the frustrating end to the Giants 2005 campaign. Burress did not catch a pass in the Giants? 23-0 NFC Wild Card loss to the Carolina Panthers last Jan. 8. The next day, he declined to attend the team?s final meeting. For the second year in a row, Burress has worked out in Miami instead of participating in the Giants? offseason conditioning program.Any receiver can get shutout and everyone knew Burress would spend his spring in Florida. But his absence from the final team meeting of the season left many unanswered questions.?What happened between me and (coach) was that I express my frustrations a little different,? Burress said. ?Then after that I went on back to Florida, got ready, started training again and tried to improve on what I did last year. I?m not really worried about last season, it?s over with. Nothing from that game is going to help me get better this year.?A few moments later, Burress said, ?It wasn?t a protest about nothing. It?s just I?m a competitor. I love to win and the way we went out, it was just kind of humiliating to me. That?s the way I felt and that?s what I chose to do. I don?t regret my decision for not going to it. It kind of made me sit back and look at that tape over and over again and see what did I do wrong, what could I have done better here, what could I have done better there. That?s all you can do, look at it in that light and keep getting better.?Did Burress hurt the team by skipping the meeting??Everybody is different,? he said. ?Nobody in this crowd (of media) is the same, we are all different. We all express our emotions differently as people. That?s just human life. I chose to do it the way I did it and I don?t have any regrets about it. It?s over with. I can still come to work, get better, smile and be happy. I don?t make any regrets about decisions I make in my life, because it makes me a better person, even if it?s better down the line, even if it?s the right one, even if it wasn?t the right one. I just deal with it when that time comes and keep on moving.?Asked specifically about the way the season ended, Burress said, ?I don?t really think anybody was happy about it. If you were happy about it, you?re in the wrong business.?I consider myself to be one of the best players at my position. If I?m not getting the football?hey, I want to go out and win. I?m not here to tie, lose, not to go out there and compete, not to catch footballs. My job is to go out and perform on Sunday. We are in a performance driven business. My job is to come to work, work hard, be a good teammate and perform on Sunday and when I feel like I?m not being at my best performance, I put a lot of pressure on myself. I take a lot of pride in what I do. I?m my own biggest critic. I?m the one that has to go home and look myself in the mirror and keep telling myself to keep going, keep going.?Burress was at times visibly frustrated on the field during the season?s final month. In a three-week stretch in December, he caught a total of seven passes for 111 yards and no touchdowns. He had a 78-yard score among his five receptions in the regular season finale at Oakland. But in the playoff game, he failed to catch a pass for the first time since the end of his rookie season in 2000.He insisted today he was not and is not blaming his quarterback, Eli Manning.?I wasn?t frustrated with him,? Burress said. ?Everybody is just trying to win, everybody is trying to go out and do the best job they can and it doesn?t always happen that way on Sunday. You always want to go out and be great each week. Teams prevent you from doing that.?Burress said he believes Manning will become one of the NFL?s best quarterbacks and made it clear they need each other.?Oh, no question about it,? Burress said. ?I can?t get better without him and I want everyone to understand that. I can?t take my game to the next level without my offensive line, without him and without Tiki (Barber) and that?s just how football is. It?s not track, I can?t just go out and get better by myself, without everybody being on the same page. If everyone is not on the same page, then nobody on the team can get better.?During his chat with the media yesterday, Manning said he and Burress have a good rapport on and off the field.?Plaxico, we are locker room mates, we see each other everyday, we have a good relationship,? Manning said. ?I?ve seen Plaxico a few times (this offseason) and talked to him. Nothing specific, I just think everything is fine.?What about Burress? absence from the farewell meeting??Obviously, he was upset,? Manning said. ?We didn?t have a good game. Everybody on this team is competitive, wants to win, wants to do well, wants to help out the team. Obviously, a lot of people are frustrated and that?s just how he expressed it.?Coughlin said he spoke to Burress, but declined to reveal specifics of their discussion.Burress joined the Giants as a free agent on March 17, 2005 after spending five seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He led the Giants with 76 receptions, 1,214 yards and tied with Amani Toomer and Jeremy Shockey for the lead with seven touchdown catches. The 76 receptions were the fifth-highest total in team history and two shy of the career high he set with Pittsburgh in 2002. Burress' 1,214 receiving yards were the second-highest total in team history. He was selected NFC Offensive Player of the Week for his Week 4 performance against St. Louis, when he caught 10 passes for 204 yards and two touchdowns.Burress said he enjoyed his first Giants season, though he wished he could have finished stronger. In the first eight games, he caught 45 passes for 656 yards and five touchdowns. In the second half of the year, those totals dipped to 31 catches for 558 yards and two scores.?Toward the end of the season I started to get a little more frustrated, because I was seeing a little more double coverage,? Burress said. ?And I just felt myself doing the same thing, running the same route and teams were looking for it. That?s why me and Eli weren?t able to be on the same page, it was taking me out of the game a little bit and we were forced to do different things.?Although Coughlin would prefer all the players participate in the team?s program, Burress is adamant that he prepares best in Florida. He said one season with the Giants forced him to change his workout procedure.?I come from a place where we were only throwing the ball 15-16 times a game,? Burress said. ?Here, we were throwing the ball 40-50 times a game. So, I was more physically tired at the end of the year. It forced me to put a little more weight on, because I know I?m going to lose a lot of weight during the season.?What I try to do is I try to bulk up right before training camp, because when I get there I?m going to lose a ton of weight. That was pretty much my deal last year. I know I?m not going to get that much time off. So I had to kind of change up my training regimen a little bit, based on how much running we were going to be doing. I think last year I was more physically tired than I?ve ever been, based on the running and the practicing on turf everyday when it gets cold and things like that. It?s a lot of running that we have to do here. I came from a run-oriented offense, so I was running, but I wasn?t running like we are running here.?But does the fact that Shockey and he do their offseason running so far away from Giants Stadium harm the team's chemistry on offense??I don?t really think so, because what I?m trying to do is get myself in the best shape I possibly can,? Burresss said. ?Being up here, I don?t feel I can do that. The weather is not good, we are training indoors. The weather is really not suitable for a guy like myself (who has) to run. (In Florida, I run) every single play in the heat. That?s why I make my decision to train down south and when I?m down there I keep seeing myself get better. So why wouldn?t I continue to do it??NOTES: The Giants practiced twice today. Linebacker LaVar Arrington worked only in the afternoon because of Achilles tendonitis.?I?m fine,? Arrington said. ?We are just being smart about it. I?m learning, taking a lot of mental reps, having a good time with the fellas and I practice once a day, until I get some of the soreness out of my Achilles heal, that?s all.? ? Second-year safety James Butler is not practicing in the camp because of a kidney condition, but Coughlin said he should be ready to go next month.?He won?t work in this camp, but he should be ready for training camp,? Coughlin said. ? Coughlin was non-committal when asked if he would take all five quarterbacks currently on the roster to training camp. But he conceded that it is an unwieldy situation.?You have five guys playing a four-man rotation,? Coughlin said. ?But that is just a part of trying to juggle this thing around and make sure everybody gets a good look and they all get individual time. Whenever we go one-on-one, they all get the same amount. It is just in the snaps we have to kind of find a way to get everybody the work without, obviously, taking away from Eli or the competitiveness of number two.? ? The Giants won?t have to make special travel concessions for Jeff Feagles this season. The 19-year punter is moving his family back to New Jersey after spending the offseason in the Phoenix area. Feagles had contemplated retirement, but decided to return for at least one more season. ? The Giants have signed safety Claudius Osei of Hamburg, Germany to spend the season on their practice squad as part of the NFL?s International Practice Squad Program. Under the three-year-old program, each AFC North and NFC East team has been assigned an international player to spend the season on the practice squad.Osei, 25, arrived in the United States as an exchange student in 1999. He played 47 games, including four bowl games, at Florida State and started the first three games of the 2002 season. As a senior in 2004, Osei had 36 tackles and two forced fumbles.Osei spent the 2005 season on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? practice squad as part of the NFL?s program. He has played the last two seasons for the Hamburg Sea Devils of NFL Europe. He had 33 tackles (26 solo) in the recently-completed season.</div>http://giants.com/news/eisen/story.asp?story_id=15896
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Stuff like this is what separates the Redskins from the rest of the NFL... our team is like a family, anything like this would be out of the question.</div>And that's what makes us (especially our D) so great on the field too.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tha.New.Look.Giants. @ Jun 15 2006, 09:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>http://nflcentral.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=6045</div>What he said, it was just the media making up a story for lack of having one.
Damn still? Plax needs to chill out, he doesn't seem like a nice guy. IDK, does Plax not like white boys from Down south or something?Get it together guys.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Fray @ Jun 21 2006, 08:31 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Damn still? Plax needs to chill out, he doesn't seem like a nice guy. IDK, does Plax not like white boys from Down south or something?Get it together guys.</div>(nvm, Merged the 2 related topics togeather)
