It can get you in trouble, especially when the cards are stacked against you to begin with.

Floyd Landis — who claims to not know how one of his eight Tour de France doping tests came back fishy — now thinks his immediate scramble for an explanation has done more harm than good.

In more desperate straits than when everyone counted him out of the Tour before Stage 17, Landis has been fired by his Phonak team and the Tour de France no longer considers him its champion. Landis said his biggest mistake has been offering daily excuses for his positive test.

“I’ve been catching a lot of grief in the press: ‘Floyd has a new excuse, a new reason for what happened,’ ” he said. “This is a situation where I’m forced to defend myself in the media. It would never have happened if UCI and WADA had followed their own rules.”

His own team has fired him, so it would seem he’s on his own with regards to finding and funding someone to help him navigate future public statements.