The Fast Fall of Plaxico Burress

New York Giants' Plaxico Burress, right, arrives at Manhattan Supreme Court for arraignment with an unidentified man on Monday, Dec. 1, 2008 in New York. Burress accidentally shot himself at a Manhattan nightclub Friday evening and was treated at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He was released Saturday. (AP Photo / December 1, 2008)

There’s something about the Plaxico Burress saga that’s not being told, or maybe can’t be told. I’m not just talking about the beyond-bizarre incident last weekend when the troubled Giants’ receiver had a gun accidentally go off in his pants at a crowded midtown nightclub. That’s just the latest chapter in what has been a slow-developing implosion of this extremely talented young athlete. As we said on PIX News last night, the gun incident came a mere ten months after Burress had caught the touchdown pass that won the Super Bowl for the Giants, an accomplishment that, by all rights, should gained him a measure of immortality in the minds of New York sports fans for generations to come. And, you’d figure, in his own mind.

Instead, the moment that placed him at the pinnacle of his profession seems to be almost the same moment that began his inexplicable downfall. First off, he didn’t show up at the ticker tape parade the city held for the team a couple of days after the game. I’m never one to criticize people who avoid parties; I try to avoid them as much as possible, much to my wife’s chagrin. But a ticker tape parade? I think I’d show for that, especially if I was one of the principal heroes being feted in the Canyon of Heroes. Opportunities like that, unless you win major sports championships or travel to the moon, are few and far between.

Then came the demands for a contract renegotiation, which no one could claim was unexpected. He sat out the team’s June mini-camp, and after that, training camp itself, finally signing a mega-deal just before the first game of the season: $35-million, with $11-million just for the 2008 season. Okay, fine. We’ve seen plenty of athletes pout their way out of training camp or practice over contract matters, but Burress eventually got the deal he wanted. Fresh start, right?

No. So not right. In late September he simply disappeared for a few days, and wouldn’t return calls from the team asking where he, you know, was. That got him a one-game suspension. A few weeks later, he had a heated argument with Coach Tom Coughlin on the sidelines. (If at this point my narrative seems a bit choppy, there’s a good reason: after Googling the various Burress-behavior timelines, I’m coming across just too many incidents to include here).

While out with an injury, he was interviewed at an NBA game, where he told the world that basketball is the sport he loves the most. (This is just me again, but if I’m paid $35-million dollars to play a sport, THAT one is my fave, hands down. Or at least that’s what I’m going to SAY is my fave).

And then came the incident late Friday at the Latin Quarter nightclub. There’s so much involved in the shooting, and the multiple cover-ups afterwards, I’m not going to sort through it all here. Talk about complicated timelines. But I’ll just hone in on this: At some point Friday night, Plaxico Burress; rich, stupendously talented, has-the-world-on-a-string Plaxico Burress, made a choice to put a handgun in the waistband of his pants, and go out in public in a state and city where such an action is considered an extremely serious crime. The fact that he was clumsy enough to actually shoot himself brings an absurd and pathetic element to the whole, sorry situation.

Can anyone out there find any reason or sense in all of this? How can a public person fall so far, so fast from the place Plaxico Burress was last February: on the top of the world. I’m no psychologist, but it seems like a person who so quickly moves from ultimate triumph to self-inflicted tragedy has self-esteem and anger issues that could only be imagined. It’s all so sad. And the team he’s forsaken? Maybe the best in the NFL, seemingly cruising to another title. After all that, it turns out they might not even need Plaxico.