Giant: The Road to the Super Bowl by Plaxico Burress, Jason Cole

From the Publisher

In Giant, Plaxico Burress takes you into the locker room, onto the practice field, and into the huddle, providing a flat-out-honest look at life on and off the field with the New York Giants and at the making of a champion.

Throughout the 2007 season, Plaxico battled near-crippling injuries, and despite rarely practicing, being heavily bandaged, and on serious painkillers, he led the New York Giants in receptions, yards, and touchdowns. He continued to play through pain in the playoffs, only to be further injured before Super Bowl XLII. Playing the arrogant Patriots—who were inviting the Giants to their victory party before the game was over—Plaxico concealed a significant injury that might have changed the outcome of the game if the Pats had known.

When he first joined the Giants, Plaxico expected to be the go-to guy for the young quarterback Eli Manning. What he didn't expect was the media and fan scrutiny that was heaped on Manning as they battled to win games.

What Plaxico also didn't expect was the difficult relationship he had with head coach Tom Coughlin, who was a stickler for discipline and who would fine players for even the mildest offenses. For five years Plaxico had played for the laid-back Bill Cowher and the Pittsburgh Steelers. In contrast, within weeks of joining the Giants, Plaxico and Coughlin were butting heads, and the fines followed.

But there to make things a little easier were friends like Jeremy Shockey and Amani Toomer, nearly polar opposites. With Shock, everything was always full-tilt and his mouth would usually get him into trouble. Toomer was the easygoing elder statesman—at times absentminded, buta brilliant receiver.

And in 2007, Manning, with Plaxico's advice and support, would rise above the scrutinizing media and come into his own, and Coach Coughlin would relax his grip somewhat and let the team breathe. The results were obvious.

It's all here. The ups and downs, the trash-talking, the sweat and blood, and what it takes to be the best.

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It's three or four in the morning on Wednesday, January 30, 2008, four days before the Super Bowl, the biggest game of my life, and I'm asking, "What does this mean?" My left knee is swollen. It looks like there's a golf ball attached to the inner side of my left knee. New York Giants trainer and coordinator of rehabilitation Byron Hansen has just told me I have a grade one sprain of the medial collateral ligament in my knee. All I know is that it hurts like hell and I can barely put any weight on my knee.

I've never had this, so I'm asking, What does this thing mean? They tell me the swelling will be there for like seven to ten days. I say, "Will I be able to play?" "I can't answer that question," Giants head trainer Ronnie Barnes says. I just bust out crying. How can this happen to me? It's going on Wednesday of Super Bowl week. I'm talking trash in the press all week. Now maybe I can't go on the fi eld with my teammates and play with them? Can you imagine how that's going to look to the media—I predict we're going to beat the 18–0 New England Patriots and then I don't play?

This is how it is for me all season. From the start of trainingcamp, when my left ankle was still recovering from surgery in the off season, to the season, when I tore the ligament off the bone of my right ankle and shredded a ligament in my left pinkie, to when I separated my shoulder in the playoffs at Green Bay. My whole season is about playing in pain.

Then again, that's sort of what my whole life is like. When you grow up in the hood, you become immune to the pain. It'slike sleeping through gunshots in the neighborhood. You just do it. We all deal with pain in this league. You better learn to play with pain. Still, there are a couple of times when I really think I'm going to have to shut it down, that I just can't play anymore this season.

I spend the next four days and even part of the Super Bowl wondering if this was going to be the time I have to stop playing. Wednesday morning is when I'm the most worried. Everybody who knows is worried. Hansen doesn't know what to tell me, Coach Tom Coughlin is freaking, and general manager Jerry Reese is worried. We all know one thing, though. We have to keep the New England Patriots from fi nding out.

This is how it works in the NFL. You have to keep the injury information hidden as much as possible. Especially now, with the championship on the line. I can't even tell people how I got hurt, stepping out of the shower on Tuesday morning, getting ready for media day. We're staying at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa in Scottsdale. Really sweet place. The showers are all glass on one side. As I'm stepping out of the shower, there are a couple of steps up and then you step out. As I push the door open and step out, my foot slides and gets caught under the door and I start to fall backward.

I'm trying to catch myself, but there's nothing to grab, so I fall and my foot gets caught under the door as I fall back. There is a little jolt of pain, but it doesn't feel too bad. We get to the stadium and we're waiting around, sitting and joking amongthe guys, and my left knee starts to get sore. I tell one of the trainers that I need a bag of ice. I ice it down and then we head out to do the interviews on the fi eld at the stadium (the University of Phoenix Stadium, where the Super Bowl is to be played). There's thousands of people and they're all asking me about my prediction from the day before. Man, I didn't even know I was giving a prediction. But we're at the hotel the day before checking in and I walk through the hotel and some guy says, "What do you think about Sunday?" I say, we'll win, 23–17, and I didn't think anything about it. The next day, I get like forty text messages with everybody saying, "We're behind you, man, we love the prediction." I think to myself, What prediction? But I said it and now all of a sudden it's national news, so that's cool. I just go with it.

But when it's all done and we go over to take the team picture, my knee is still sore. So I'm leaving the fi eld and I say, "Damn, something doesn't feel right." I need to get another bag of ice and I tell Ronnie Barnes. I lean over and check my knee. But he checks it, too, and says everything seems okay.

As the day goes on, the pain gets worse and I ask Barnes to look at my knee again. No problem. So I go out that night with my teammates, returning to the hotel in time for the 1 a.m. curfew. I fall asleep but a few hours later wake up and the knee is worse than before.

About three or four o'clock in the morning, it's like damn, what is going on? I turn the light on and my knee is swollen. I get out of bed and my left leg is hurting so bad I can barely stand up. I pick up the phone and call Byron and tell him, "You need to come look at my knee." He comes down and pushes my knee around some more and that's when he fi gures it out.

Later on, I fi nd out sometimes when you sprain the medial collateral ligament just a little, it doesn't even show up onan X-ray or MRI. They gave me another MRI and it showed up at that point. The good news is I don't need surgery. The MCL heals on its own.