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January 29, 2008

Burress talks big

Apparently, Plaxico Burress likes to talk. A lot.

A few days ago, the Giants' wideout stirred the pot when he said New York's wide receiver contingent was better than that of the Patriots'.

But now he's stepped into Anthony Smith territory by predicting that New York will beat New England by a score of 23-17 in Super Bowl XLII on Sunday.

Today he said he came up with that score because his high school basketball number was 23; he wears 17 currently with the Giants. He also stood by his word.

"Are predictions guarantees?," he said. "We want to win this game. As far as professional sports and playing in this game, it's OK to want to win, think big and dream. We're going to take this thing back to New York City."

Burress, who did not practice for much of the season due to an ankle injury, also said he'd like to see the G-Men be even bigger underdogs than they already are: "why not make it 21 or 28?," he wondered. (New York is currently 12-point underdogs.)

"We are a confident bunch. Why not be? We were a 10-6 regular-season team and now we're in the Super Bowl. We got here the hard way," he said. "We had three road (playoff) games. We played against the No. 1 defense in Tampa Bay. We played against the Dallas Cowboys, who had their whole offense and defense make the Pro Bowl. Then we played the Green Bay Packers. Look at us."

Burress' teammate Osi Umenyiora, who has had a few things to say about the Pats himself in recent weeks, basically supported his claim.

"He's a confident guy. If that's what he says, hopefully we will go out there and prove him right, but I'm not going to make any predictions or guarantees."

For their part, the Patriots weren't really biting on Burress' words.

"I didn't hear that. Good for him," Asante Samuel said.

"I always feel like talk is cheap," Richard Seymour said. "Someone can get out here and talk about it all day. But Sunday, I think the team that plays the best is going to be the champion. You can't talk about winning the game, you have to go out and execute and get it done when it's time to get it done.

"Talk is cheap. You need to put some actions behind that."

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 5:27 PM | Permalink