After last night’s reunion meeting with Giants coach Tom Coughlin, which is being described in the immediate aftermath as “positive” (which is roughly as surprising as any surgery on an NFL player being described in the immediate aftermath as “successful”), receiver Plaxico Burress has visited his other former NFL team -- the Steelers.
Per the Beaver County Times, Burress is meeting with coach Mike Tomlin and director of football operations Kevin Colbert.
The presence of Plaxico at camp illustrates a dynamic that, as Peter King explained it during Monday’s PFT Live, coaches would like to avoid -- bringing in free agents for visits at a time when a team has a group of players at the same position who may wonder precisely what in the hell is going on.
Steelers receivers, despite having a solid group that runs four deep (if/when Hines Ward is healthy), are missing one thing that Burress brings to the table: Height. The Steelers thought they were adding that with Limas Sweed, a second-round pick in 2008 who in three years has caught only a roster spot, and he’s on the verge of dropping that.
Though it has been a sore point between Ward and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers know what a tall guy like Plaxico can do for the offense. The question becomes whether he’ll rejoin his first former team or his second former team, or whether someone else will jump into the hunt for a guy who can still be a weapon.
Given the Eagles’ recently stealthy pursuit of big-name free agents, for all anyone knows they’ll announce that they’ve signed Burress minutes after he leaves Latrobe.