For those of you wondering out there, and I count at least two hands, no, it didn’t escape notice in Philadelphia that Plaxico Burress recently exited a prison wearing a throwback Phillies cap. Philly media outlets immediately processed more than a few amusing comments about this wardrobe selection. Was it a sly signal to the world that Plax desired employment with the Philadelphia Eagles? (Everybody was pretty sure he wasn’t saying that he wanted to join the 1979 Phillies. After all, they’re all pretty old now, and well, you know, Burress is nominally a football player.)
But everybody connected the dots that may or may not be on the same piece of paper. Michael Vick, another ex-con, is now the Eagles QB, so –.
The best of the pieces about this non-event was probably the John Gonzalez article on Philly.com June 9th. As befitting a non-occurrence, Gonzalez wisely focused on another nonsensical theme for comic effect, namely Burress’ agent and his rather strange behavior upon “his” player’s breathing the air of freedom. In other words, Drew Rosenhaus tried to suck up all the free air around his client, nearly leaving him on the ground, gasping. As Gonzalez wrote, “The agent materialized suddenly from the cover of the morning fog and attached himself to Burress the way stingrays suction-cup their mouths to the hand of whichever aquarium employee is holding fresh fish at the moment.” Drew wanted to show the world that he was best buds with Plax, apparently, and he certainly managed to do that. Gonzalez again: “There was Rosenhaus, rubbing Burress’ shoulders in a choreographed show of public bonhomie and creepy personal space invasion.”
Of course, the likely agenda there was actually Rosenhaus’ need to keep Plax’ mouth covered with duct tape so that the loose-cannon wideout didn’t say anything that would damage his bargaining position. The agent made it clear that the former Giant is open to all 32 NFL clubs, and Burress couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
All 32 teams would obviously include the Eagles.
But would it work? As Gonzalez pointed out, the Eagles already have a number of talented ball-catchers, most notably DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin, but also including LeSean McCoy, Brent Celek, and Riley Cooper. Adding Burress to the mix would, arguably, give Philadelphia at least two reasonably selfish receivers, and is this a headache that Andy Reid wants?
Maybe. Reid has taken on at least two headache situations in the past several years (Terrell Owens and Vick), and he’s one for two there. Some would make that two for two since Owens helped the Eagles make it to the Super Bowl.
As with Vick, I suspect that the fan base in Philly doesn’t want another “bad apple” for the Eagles’ barrel, but recent events have made that fan base revise its thinking about such matters, huh?
