The Fantasyland of Plaxico Burress

After reading the transcription of Plaxico Burress’ conference call, we get a pretty good idea of the fantasy world that the Giants receiver is living in. He has no regrets and didn’t lose any sleep over being suspended for a game for supposedly driving his 21-month-old son to school (Has he skipped a few grades? What school does a one-and-a-half-year-old go to?) without making a phone call to the Giants to explain why he wouldn’t be coming to work that day. He’s been fined at least 40 times for showing up late, not showing up at all or showing up at the wrong team’s practice facility. To say he “doesn’t get it” is an understatement.

The Giants just signed Burress to a long-term contract so he’s not going anywhere. He doesn’t make a jerk of himself like, say, Jeremy Shockey; he’s just living in an alternate universe to the one you and I live in. To get a better idea of how the brain of Burress works (and because it’s more entertaining), here are some of his contradictory, no-remorse answers without the questions.

“I didn’t feel any reason to explain to them what happened or why I missed because I don’t feel it’s really anybody’s business.”

“Maybe I would have put a phone call in, but as far as things like that, I’m always going to put those things first. That’s one thing people have to understand. I don’t have any regrets for it.”

“Why would there be any hard feelings.”

“I do know I’ve been fined quite a bit. Some of the demands they ask me to do, I just don’t meet. Do I have an excuse for them? No.”

“Maybe I have a problem with time or something. I don’t know. I haven’t been able to quite put my finger on it.”

“I haven’t lost any sleep over the situation.”

“I enjoyed my week off.”

“I definitely let them down.”

“Well, see, those are things that you guys don’t know so you can’t really say it wasn’t an emergency based on my part because you really don’t know everything that was going on and happened.”

“Just like coach said I was suspended because I needed to be more responsible. I want to be responsible - just not toward them.” (Now that one’s a classic.)

“There’s no telling what may happen. There may be a time where I’ll have to be spontaneous again. Will I make the same decision? Yes. Will I handle the situation a little better? Yes, I’ll put in a phone call. I can’t say what’s going to happen. I can’t predict the future.”

“It hasn’t affected my behavior. It happened. I don’t have any regrets about the situation. I feel good.”

So to recap: He wouldn’t do anything different, except make a phone call. But hey, that’s the whole point. All you had to do was make a phone call. He didn’t lose any sleep. He enjoyed himself. He has no regrets. And he can’t predict the future. A normal person would just say, “I’m sorry. I screwed up. It will never happen again.” Now we’ve entered the ‘Plax being Plax’ world. I think I’m going to start doing that. I’m not going to show up for work, and when asked why I’ll just say, “I had to help my daughter open her package of Pop Tarts.” Hopefully my boss will just shake his head, walk away and say, “That’s just Jeff being Jeff.” But somehow I doubt it.