Jacobs: Burress won't be a Giant again

Cancel the "Welcome Home" balloon order for the Plaxico Burress reunion party.

Brandon Jacobs, Burress' best friend on the Giants, said he has spoken to the incarcerated wide receiver -- who will be released from prison Monday -- and that a comeback with Big Blue is "out of the question."

Jacobs thinks Burress will wind up playing for -- brace yourself, Giants fans! -- the Eagles.

"There is no chance Plaxico Burress is a New York Giant after he comes home," Jacobs said confidently. "None."

After two-plus years of speculation about whether the franchise that Burress helped win a Super Bowl would welcome him back, Jacobs made it sound as if it won't be up to them.

"He's got options, and it's good that he could weigh out his options," Jacobs said. "I would love for him to be a part of the Giants, but I don't think that's even on his plate.

"I'm so sure because I talk to him once a week. Plax, he doesn't think anything is wrong with the organization. He just wants a new start."

That could come down the Turnpike, where Burress would join a talented and deep corps of receivers in Philadelphia, a team that already has shown it can handle the rehabilitation of a player coming out of prison. Previous reports have linked Burress with the Eagles.

"Plax is a Virginia guy, [Michael] Vick is a Virginia guy," Jacobs said. "They just sort of went through the same things. They have a lot of dynamic players down there and it wouldn't be a bad thing to go down there, he thinks, because he wants to win. He wants to go down there and he wants to help them win the Super Bowl right away."

Jacobs added: "I would hate to see him go to where I think he's going to go from talking to him. It's pretty tough to deal with all those different combinations that they can present."

Jacobs said if he were more certain that he would be back with the Giants himself in 2011 -- he said the lockout and the future structure of the league and a salary cap has everyone's stay uncertain -- he would try to persuade Burress to come back. "But I can't do that," he said. "The guy, he wants to go and he wants to explore his options, which should be good."

Jacobs and other teammates were in Manhattan Thursday night at Justin Tuck's celebrity billiards tournament to support his RUSH for Literacy campaign. While the locked-out players discussed the future of the league, the most pressing topic was the imminent release of Burress and whether he should come back to the Giants.

Tuck said that before the lockout, he campaigned to the front office for the Giants to bring Burress back.

"I'll say this much: Go back and see what our record was when he shot himself and how devastating our offense was," Tuck said of the team's 10-1 start in 2008. "I'm sure there are going to be a lot of other teams that want him too, and I can't speak for Plaxico. Obviously, he has a mind of his own . . . But coming from the captain of the New York Giants, I would love to have Plaxico back here in Giants blue."

Added center Shaun O'Hara: "I would rather see him catching touchdowns for us than against us."