Burt: Call Us When You Feel Weirder

Burt Grossman was tired.

I knew it because of what he said, and I knew it because of what he didn’t say. I knew it because he said he was tired, and I knew it because he didn’t say anything outlandish.

Weird was his word.

“I didn’t make any weird statements,” he said.

You see, the perception is that weird is his world.

He was almost apologetic Friday afternoon at maybe not being a little bit weirder in his first press conference since becoming a signed-on-the-dotted-line member of the Chargers.

“Probably because I’m tired,” he said. “I had a seven-hour flight and didn’t get in until midnight. Then I was up at 7 a.m.”

That’s enough to take the life out of a fellow. He didn’t even have enough energy to tie his shoelaces, though that may have been his way of adopting his idea of a California look.

It also could be that his lively side went out the window when he got rid of his boa constrictor and pit bull, an odd couple who “roomed” with him at the University of Pittsburgh.

He did, indeed, seem a bit subdued on this afternoon when he ended his holdout and signed a five-year contract worth from $2.885 million to $3.01 million.

Not that he was without wit.

Asked if he was pleased with his contract, he said: “I have to check with my accountant to see if it’s as much as I made at Pitt. If it is, I’ll be happy.”

Being the eighth player selected in the first round, he might not be happy to hear that the 10th and 13th players selected will be making more than him per year, but this wasn’t an afternoon to complain about small change.

This wasn’t an afternoon to complain about anything.

Perhaps Burt Grossman was purposely being low key. He is a rookie, a highly paid rookie at that, and here he was walking into camp on its 35th day. And he was walking into camp on an off day. What’s more, he was walking into camp only three days before those dreaded two-a-day practices were about to end.

This guy is no dummy. The last thing he needed was to saunter into an established camp with bravado and outrageous observations. This was a time to give the veterans as little fuel as possible for the razing that would surely be ahead.

Surely, someone suggested, this would be an interesting team with two characters such as Grossman and Jim McMahon, the other newcomer. I leaned forward in my chair, thinking Grossman might say something like, “So what’s the big deal about some guy wearing a sweat band.”

No luck.

“I don’t know,” Grossman said. “I haven’t met him, but I think he has me beat.”

This was no way to begin, a defensive lineman making a concession to a quarterback.

Come on, Burt.

Another media type asked him if he expected to start. This was an opening. This was a spot for a bold proclamation.

“Yeah,” he said. “I expect to.”

That’s it?

This was the guy who once said he would either get another dog or get married?

He actually said this: “It feels good to be here.”

He said: “I’m in fairly good shape.”

He said: “My money is tied up in annuities.”

And he is buying a house in La Jolla, of all places for a defensive lineman to live. He could at least say he was going to live with the gorillas (or boas) in the zoo. At about this point, I started looking to see if he was carrying an attache case and wearing winged-tip tennies.

Did this guy really have a pit bull and a snake, or did he have a kitten and a feathered boa?

I feel quite certain that he did have the former rather than the latter. What we were seeing was the intelligent, and maybe weary, side of Burt Grossman. It’s OK to be outrageous your junior and senior years of college and maybe the day you are drafted, but it’s a little bit dangerous when you are finally in a position to live with, play with and, most importantly, seek acceptance from your teammates.

This image thing came up once again, almost inadvertently, when someone asked about the type of player he would like to be.

“Some people expect me to be a

(Mark) Gastineau type,” he said, “but I don’t see that. I’m not a Gastineau fan or a (Brian) Bosworth fan. They’re not the type of people I’d look up to.”

Aha, now he was on a roll, taking some shots.

“I’d like to be like Richard Dent or Lee Williams or Lawrence Taylor,” he said. “I respect them.”

Notice that he included Lee Williams, a teammate and a colleague in the defensive line. This was a bouquet for a veteran, albeit a deserved one. It was Burt Grossman saying that a first-round pick making about $3 million over five years has found a role model a few feet down the line in a guy most of the sporting world has yet to discover.

This supposedly outrageous rookie had once again said exactly the right thing.

I was disappointed.

Please, Burt, the next time you have a press conference, get some rest first.