Plaxico Burress remains unsigned as the list of his potential suitors continues to dwindle. Rick Stewart/Getty Images

Top management in the NFL is being whipped and driven by the agents and their high-priced clients. It's a degrading thing, but few of the club officers will openly complain because pro football is a recruiting game now, and experienced recruiters at the collegiate level know the last thing you want to do is make the player's parents mad. So the NFL guys keep their lips buttoned and don't say what they want to say about the people who are running that game now.

The Giants' general manager, Ernie Accorsi, couldn't take it anymore last week so he told the recruit, in this case Steelers wideout Plaxico Burress, and his agent to pack up their things and hit the road. Oooh, very tough position. Not seen very often. Raised some eyebrows, it did. Here's what happened.

First of all, if you live, as I do, in Jersey, where business practices are rather primitive, you know the frustration and blind anger you feel when the person you call to fix the drain or the roof or even a busted window, doesn't show up when he's supposed to. Without a word of explanation. It's just understood. That's the way things are done here. It's taken for granted, just as a player and his agent who pull the same stunt in the NFL is taken for granted by the media.

So Burress and his agent, Michael Harrison, were scheduled for a contract talk with Accorsi a week ago Monday. They stiffed him without a word of explanation. Accorsi found out when a travel agent who worked with the club called to let him know they weren't aboard their scheduled flight. Phone calls followed. Finally some word. Oh yes, comma, Plaxico has the flu, poor fella. That's one explanation I read. I also read a quote from Harrison that Burress "just wasn't feeling well." And another one, probably to a writer whose name he didn't recognize, which consisted of "No comment."

"I guess Harrison figured the best way to handle it was to give a bunch of different answers," said an NFL executive who was on top of the situation. "If you were keeping score, flu was leading early on two flues to one no-comment to one not feeling well."

The thing that puzzled me was why the media swallowed this nonsense so obligingly. Wasn't there even a gentle reminder or two that this is not how gentlemen conduct business? Nah, business as usual, Jersey style, tomorrow's another day, etc.

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The other day turned out to be Wednesday, when Burress and Harrison showed up late for their meeting, and the next thing you knew, Accorsi was announcing that the club no longer had an interest in Burress. What happened was that they disagreed on the numbers, which will not be repeated here because, frankly, all these million-dollar packages bore me silly.

The major disagreement, however, came on the matter of when the issue was to be resolved.

Accorsi wanted them to negotiate in his office until a deal was reached or it definitely wasn't. Burress and Harrison wanted to wait. And then see what the Vikings had to say.

"Last year I lost three top guys," Accorsi said, "because I let them walk out of here. They just took my offer and shopped it around. It wasn't going to happen again."

Last thing we heard was that Burress fired Harrison, who was just about a one-trick pony, or a one-client agent. (Actually, according to the Players Association, Harrison represents four players). The breed is the bane of general managers.