Plaxico made right move by joining Jets

FLORHAM PARK, N.J.

He will talk with his former teammates on the field Saturday night, sharing memories and reliving some of the good times, especially from that unforgettable Super Bowl season in 2007.

It will be an emotional moment for wide receiver Plaxico Burress, now a Jet nearly three years after his last game in a Giants uniform, and he will enjoy reminiscing. But the one thing he won't do is wonder what his life might have been like had he decided to reunite with his old team, whose fate changed along with his own on that fateful November night in 2008.

This much became obvious Wednesday when Burress talked about what it's going to be like facing the Giants at MetLife Stadium. Apparently, nothing the Giants could have done this summer -- short of promising him a ridiculous amount of money, perhaps -- would have convinced Burress to reconnect with them.

We know now the Jets were willing to invest heavily in Burress, guaranteeing $3.017 million in salary compared to the $1 million in guarantees the Giants were offering. And that Giants' offer was contingent on making the final roster. But what if the Giants had matched -- or exceeded -- the Jets' offer to show they were willing to make a significant commitment to bring him back?

Even cold, hard cash might not have convinced him. When I asked Burress before practice if he would have made a different decision had the Giants ponied up more money than the Jets, the 34-year-old didn't hesitate with his answer.

"Personally, I needed a fresh start,'' said Burress, who joined the Jets after serving a 20-month prison sentence following his self-shooting at a New York nightclub on Nov. 28, 2008.

"If I wanted to go somewhere and get more money, I could have [gone to] a couple of more places and signed a two- or three-year deal. But I just wanted to go somewhere fresh, have an opportunity to play for a great head coach in Rex [Ryan] and a great team. I feel I'm in the right place."

He is in the perfect place.

Going back to the Giants would have been a mistake, even if the money had been comparable. He needed to move on, and the Jets offered a terrific alternative, an atmosphere as far removed from the Giants as you could imagine. Ryan's freewheeling style is the opposite of Tom Coughlin's, and Burress already feels more comfortable than he did with Coughlin's more disciplined, more demanding approach.

"I'm doing this every day with a smile on my face, with a new attitude," Burress said. "We did some great things over there. I have some good friends, and I still have some Giants fans over there."

But his meeting with the Giants in late July was important for Burress, even if he knew it wouldn't lead to a return. He used the word "closure" to describe a series of meetings with team officials and visits with former teammates at the Giants' training facility.

"It went as I expected it to," Burress said. "We had some laughs and great memories. I saw that picture up on the wall."

It was a prominently displayed shot of Burress making the winning catch against the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, and he paused for several seconds to look at it. "It was humbling, it was good," he said.

It all fell apart the next season, starting with Burress' self-shooting. The Giants were 10-1 at the time, finished 12-4 and lost their first playoff game.

Too much history there to go back, even if he did find it gratifying to meet with team officials.

"It was good to see Jerry Reese, John Mara, Steve Tisch," Burress said of the Giants' general manager and co-owners. "To be able to have an opportunity to sit down, face to face, for the first time and tell them how much I appreciated them bringing me in and allowing my game to flourish. It was a great meeting."

Notice the one name Burress neglected to mention? Yep. Tom Coughlin. Burress met with him, too, but didn't mention it Wednesday. Unintentional oversight? Don't think so.

All the more reason why Burress is in the right spot and with the right coach.