Giants: Plaxico Burress criticizes Coughlin, courts Jets

Plaxico Burress said he was fined and disciplined while playing for the New York Giants because he bristled under the controlling approach of head coach Tom Coughlin.

In an interview yesterday with ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, Burress may have burned his bridge to the Giants, while pointedly reaching out to the New York Jets, saying that he'd like to win a Super Bowl with another team in the same city.

Burress was reportedly fined thousands of dollars for violating team rules during his tenure with the Giants, from 2005 to 2008. On Nov. 28, 2008, he shot himself in the right thigh at a New York City nightclub and was arrested. The wide receiver was convicted of attempted criminal possession of a weapon and served two years in prison. He was released on June 6 and is considering a return to the NFL.

Burress doesn't look back fondly on his time with the Giants.

I was just in a place to where I didn't like to go to work during the week, but I just love to play on Sundays, Burress said. If you can't sit down and go talk to a man that you are busting your tail for, not even to have the respect for anything that you have to say . . . the only thing I knew then was to rebel.

I kind of felt it was like, 'I'm the coach, you are the player, said Burress. It doesn't matter what you have to say, you just do what I tell you to do.' I just believe that sometimes I took things for granted. I don't really think I was in a happy place then. Some things that I didn't agree with, with the way he went about things. And the only way to show my way was to just rebel. Is that who I am? No.