Shoot: Plaxico Burress with Braylon gives Jets talented volatile corps

Plaxico Burress is now reporting to the other side of New Meadowlands stadium. Say this for Rex Ryan and Mike Tannenbaum: there’s apparently no headcase the New York Jets head coach and GM don’t think they can tame, at least when it comes to wide receivers. First they acquired Santonio Holmes after the Steelers grew tired of his headlines. Then they picked up Braylon Edwards after a nightclub confrontation caused the Browns to want to rid themselves of him. And now they’ve signed former New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress, which on paper appears to be the riskiest move of all because Plax is more or less fresh out of prison.

Not that such a move didn’t work out okay for the Philadelphia Eagles with Michael Vick. While half the equation is a matter of rehabilitation, the other half is conditioning. Vick has stayed out of trouble, and turns out to have been in plenty good physical shape. The Jets are betting Burress is in the right headspace, and must have liked what they saw in the conditioning department when they worked him out this week. But this is a player who had a history of off the field troubles even before accidentally shooting himself in the leg in public. And now he’s a part of a receiving corps which, to varying degrees, is like placing a recovering alcoholic around a bunch of bartenders. Edwards was busted for DUI not long after he arrived in New York, but Rex and the gang appear to have since reined him in. How much rope will Plaxico have to work with?

This is a guy that the Giants didn’t want back even though they could have had him for nothing. And the Steelers grew tired of him before that. Then again, the Steelers didn’t want Holmes either, and that’s worked out just fine. Nor did the Browns want Braylon. Whatever the larger than life Rex Ryan has up his sleeve in terms of getting receivers with larger-than-life troubles to hunker down and behave and produce, he’ll need to push it into overdrive now that the Jets receiving corps is, at least on paper, among the most “troubled” in the league. It’s also among the most talented, again, on paper. Unless of course the Jets really do ditch Braylon, as some rumors have suggested, and Plax is merely his replacement. As with all things, we shall see.

Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes tries to crash airplane with his iPod

Just weeks after being traded from the Pittsburgh Steelers to the New York Jets, wide receiver Santonio Holmes was busted (although not arrested) during a recent flight for refusing to turn off his iPod as the plane was getting set to land. After the flight landed safely despite Holmes’ best efforts to crash the plane using the power of his iPod from his seat, police greeted the former Super Bowl MVP at the gates to remind him of the multitudes of airplanes that have crashed because someone forgot to turn off an iPod FAA rules which require behavior while in the air that would make no sense in any other societal situation.

Holmes wasn’t charged for the violation, but he is already facing a suspension for part of the upcoming NFL season for reasons we can’t remember. No word on whether the league will tack on extra games to his suspension due to this latest revelation that he’s a terrorist big fan of music.