New York Giants president John Mara discusses Plaxico Burress situation in radio interview
Giants president and CEO John Mara was a guest of Chris Russo this afternoon on Sirius XM's "Mad Dog Unleashed"
program. It was the first interview for Mara -- or anyone from the Giants' front office, for that matter -- since the team released Plaxico Burress last week.
I heard the first 10 minutes of the interview before Russo switched to league-wide matters, such as the labor situation and a few rules changes. Below are most of the excerpts from the first part of the interview. Mara said plenty of interesting stuff about Burress and his whole situation. Russo didn't ask him about the Braylon Edwards trade rumors, but he did ask about the Giants' contingency plans for Burress over the past couple of months. Enjoy:
On Mayor Bloomberg's saying the Giants were negligent in not reporting the Burress shooting immediately: "He did and I told him I took real exception to those statements because we reported that incident as soon as we found out about it to NFL security, which is what we're supposed to do. And NFL security did notify the NYPD, and there's a dispute as to when exactly that happened. But as I understand the facts, they notified them in a timely (manner). There was some miscommunication about what hospital he was in, but any notion that there was any kind of attempt to cover this up is just ridiculous. And I told the Mayor that I didn't appreciate his comments on that and that he had his facts wrong. But that's in the past."
On whether the team should have suspended Antonio Pierce: "I don't really think so. My only problem with Antonio was the fact that he was there at that time, at that hour, two days before we're playing a game, and he's obviously one of the leaders on this team. But as soon as it happened, he called Ronnie Barnes right away, rushed Burress to the hospital right away. I mean, should he have taken the gun with him? Probably not. But what was he going to do with it? Was he going to leave it on the sidewalk there? He took it with him, he told us he had it, we told NFL security and NYPD that he had it."
On Russo's suggestion both he and Mara would have called police right away if in Pierce's position: "I think you're probably right about that, but everybody has their ways of reacting to a situation like that where you have a friend who's all of a sudden been shot and you're trying to get him to the hospital. I'm not going to necessarily second-guess him on that. I think he, at the very least, used poor judgment being in that night club at that hour two days before we're playing."
On if the Burress incident ruined the team's momentum: "Well, I don't know if I'd phrase it that way. I think we certainly were hurt without having him in there because he's such a talented player and he'd always seem to have a good game against the Eagles, for example, and obviously we did not play well against them in the playoffs. The other games ... the Minnesota game, we pulled our starters fairly early in that game, so I don't think that's fair (to blame Burress for the loss). We did beat Washington and Carolina without him. I think he could have made a difference in the Philadelphia game, no question about it, Chris."
On whether the Giants shouldn't have even considered bringing Burress back: "Well, I could understand people feeling that way. What we had decided to do was, 'Let's wait and see what happens when he makes his court appearance,' the one that just occurred in the last week or two. Let's see what the outcome of that is and we don't have to make any decision prior to that. Let's just wait to see what happens when we have all the facts and let's see exactly what we're dealing with. Unfortunately, the case was postponed again and we felt like that would continue to leave us in limbo here. We were attempting to settle one of the two grievances out there with him -- one of which was decided in his favor just the other day. We were not having much success in those settlement discussions. And we just felt like enough was enough, it's time to just move on. And Jerry Reese attempted to contact him on a number of occasions and was not able to get a hold of him. And that, to be honest with you, irritated me quite a bit. ... I just felt like all those circumstances and the fact that we weren't going to know about his legal status for quite some time, we just felt like the time was right to just move on and go in a different direction."
On whether Burress' situation handcuffed the Giants' ability to get another receiver: "No, I don't think so. We obviously looked at the receivers that were out there and made a decision that we were not going to actively pursue any of them."
On if there was a receiver they desired, would they have cut Burress sooner: "I would say that would have been a possibility, yes."
On holding onto Burress because there was no better option: "I think, Chris, it was more the circumstances that the court date was coming up. I was fairly certain, to be honest with you, at the end of the '08 season, that he was probably not coming back to us. But we felt like there was no reason to make that decision until we had all the facts and circumstances, which we hoped to have by this hearing date that recently took place. But when that got postponed, we just felt like enough was enough, we can't keep waiting on this. But if we felt like a month ago there was a receiver out there we really wanted we still would have gone after him and we still would have had a decision to make on Plaxico. So his status really didn't have any effect on that decision at all."
On Burress' role in helping the Giants to Super Bowl XLII: "No question about that, Chris. In my opinion, we do not win the Super Bowl in the '07 season without him being there. He was arguably our most valuable player. And he's a tremendous talent and that's the crime of it all. He really has a lot of talent. He can be one of the great players in this league. I mean, if he was able to stay here and continue his career here and stay out of trouble, there would have been billboards in Times Square with his picture on them. I think he's that good and had that much charisma and everything. So that's why it was a particularly tough decision for us to have to part ways. But there just comes a point in time as an organization where you have to make a decision and say enough is enough, we've got to move on."
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Mara also talked about the special master's ruling in favor of Burress for the $1 million payment of his signing bonus the Giants had withheld. He basically reiterated what he and the league had said in statements the other day: Burress' taking a gun into a club was a "willful"
action in their opinion and that they need to address the issue in the new collective bargaining agreement.
I caught the tail end of the interview when I got back in the car and heard Mara talking about PSLs. Russo had told him Wellington "is tossing up in heaven, going crazy"
about the PSLs and Mara responded by saying his late father "was dealing with a completely different set of circumstances than we're dealing with right here."
He also added with a laugh his father "never really would have let us go into this new building in the first place if he (had his way)"
and that Wellington "was happy with the Polo Grounds. He told me that over and over again."
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As for the local workout of the draft-eligible players at the stadium Thursday, I'm told from my college-level sources there were no big local names, such as LB Brian Cushing, in attendance. I heard three Rutgers players were there: CB Jason McCourty, DB Courtney Greene and LB Kevin Malast. No sign of WR Kenny Britt, who will be in next week, or TE Kevin Brock, who's slowly moving up the charts in the late rounds. At first, it didn't sound like Brock was going to be drafted, but it sounds like that's going to be the case after all.
Also, Florida State CB/KR Michael Ray Garvin, an Upper Saddle River native who played at Don Bosco, was in Thursday. Garvin is a track star who ran a 4.24 40-yard dash recently. Garvin is a late-round/free-agent possibility.
