In the minds of many, the 2008 Giants were headed for a second straight Super Bowl until Plaxico Burress idiotically toted that Glock pistol into the Latin Quarter Night Club.
How fitting now that after Burress may have derailed one team’s Super Bowl bid, he has a chance to save another’s.
The fickle finger of fate has turned into a fist and KO’d the Steelers’ passing game, sending quarterbacks Ben Roethlisberger and Byron Leftwich, wide receivers Antonio Brown and Jerrico Cotchery to the canvas. But fate works in mysterious ways by bringing Burress back into the NFL. Burress is a Steeler again after no one in the league seemed to want him.
I’m rooting for him. Burress was always a good guy. Hey, it’s even documented. He was voted the Good Guy Award by Giants beat writers one year. He deserved a dunce hat for stupidity but the jail term was harsh. Plaxico is no criminal. The law made him into an example. And there was a whole team of Giants that didn’t have to collapse at the end of the 2008 season because of one incident.
There were undoubtedly reasons why no one picked him up this off-season. Now, can he prove everyone wrong who wondered: could he, at age 35, still contribute? For one half of a season, why not? He’s with the perfect franchise in the perfect system and, even when the rest of the explosive passing game gets healthy, he will provide an element the Steelers didn’t have – that tall receiver who can run the end zone fade and take attention away from the team’s biggest red zone target, tight end Heath Miller.
Burress said during his 10-month layoff since leaving the Jets that he could “have a two- or three-touchdown game coming off the couch” and he’ll get that chance against the Browns Sunday, followed by a grudge match against the Ravens. The Steelers still have Mike Wallace and Emmanuel Lewis and when he scans the field in Cleveland third-string QB Charlie Batch will probably appreciate seeing the big target that Burress provides.
But it’s when Roethlisberger returns from his dislocated rib when we will see his true impact.
As Burress said when he met the Pittsburgh press Wednesday, “He’s not finished, and I’m not finished. Let’s see if we can do it again.”
Roethlisberger lobbied for Burress before he signed with the Jets, where he had eight of his 45 receptions went for touchdowns. But do not confuse the Jets with the Steelers. The Jets had no real vertical threat to open things up for Burress. Do not confuse Mark Sanchez with Roethlisberger, with whom he had a pretty good chemistry going for one year before he hooked up with Eli Manning. And yes, do not confuse Sanchez with Manning, either.
Gene J. Puskar/AP
Ben Roethlisberger
The Steelers are the perfect organization with the perfect offensive system and the perfect head coach, a no-nonsense guy in Mike Tomlin - a coach out of the Tom Coughlin mold.
“He is going to be excited,” Batch told reporters Wednesday. “I may have to calm him down because he gets to put the Steelers uniform on again for the first time. There will be a lot of emotions with him because this brings him back full circle to a place I know he didn’t want to leave the first time.”
Burress, who will wear No. 80 again with the Steelers, said there is a comfort level being back in that locker room, which hasn’t changed completely since 2004, his last season there. He looked to be in very good shape at his workout and if he can still get some separation from press coverage, he can let that lanky body and long arms go to work again.
“I want to just kind of add a different wrinkle to this offense,” he explained. “Get down there inside the 20, draw some double coverage, open some other guys up. There’s a few things I can do. From the standpoint of going out and making plays, I understand coverages. I’ve been around a long time, and it’s just getting to the spots where I need to be.”
Right now, Pittsburgh is the spot he needs to be. He deserves another shot . . . no pun intended
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/gola-pittsburg-fits-plax-perfectly-article-1.1206347#ixzz2CyuVYABT
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I mean I'm glad we got him but who is he 
Emmanuel Lewis played Webster.
