Training camps are open and free agent receiver Plaxico Burress remains unsigned, and Burress is baffled by that.
Burress told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that he expected to have contract offers as soon as free agency started, and he assumed that in late July he’d be in camp with some NFL team.
“No doubt about it,” Burress said. “With some of the things I was able to do after being away for two years, I pretty much thought it spoke for itself. But I guess obviously not.”
Burress caught 45 passes for 612 yards and eight touchdowns last season, and he said he’s in much better shape now than he was a year ago. And yet no team seems to have any particular interest in adding Burress to its roster. That may be a result of concerns that Burress is more trouble than he’s worth in a locker room, but Burress said any perception that he’s not a good teammate is false.
“For anybody to say I was a problem in the locker room or anything like that is totally a lie,” Burress said. “All I did was come out, was a great teammate, tried to play the best football that I could play.”
Age is surely a factor in teams turning away from Burress. He’ll turn 35 in two weeks and isn’t as fast as he was when he was younger. In fact, Burress was already showing signs of slowing down even before he accidentally shot himself in the leg in 2008, ending his tenure with the Giants and landing him in prison for two years: Burress’s average yards per catch had declined for four consecutive seasons prior to his prison sentence.
But Burress says he doesn’t know why he’s not getting a chance.
“Some things you don’t have an answer to, but to me it’s just a matter of keep working hard, keep training, and keep building myself up to get back to the player I know I can be,” Burress said.
Burress may know he can be a productive NFL wide receiver, but 32 NFL general managers remain unconvinced.
source: PFT.com
author: Michael David Smith
photo from TebowTampa.com
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