ELI Manning could not lift his game, could not lift his team, without Plaxico Burress.
If the judicial system does not interfere with Burress, and he is lucky enough to escape the wrath of Mayor Bloomberg, if somehow he has been scared straight by the prospect of jail time for his latest and greatest mindless, irresponsible stunt that crossed over into recklessness, then some of his prominent Giant teammates would welcome him back to chase another Super Bowl next season.
MORNING AFTER MISERY FOR FALLEN CHAMPS
The most prominent of whom is the quarterback.
Manning was anything but a Super Bowl MVP quarterback once his Go To Guy turned into a Go To The Nightclub With A Gun Guy. Burress was having an off year. And still changed the way defenses played Manning, and the way Manning played.
Asked point blank yesterday whether he would want Burress back, Manning said: “Sure. Sure. He’s a tremendous player and … we just gotta see what happens there.”
There must have been close to 17 Burress questions for Manning. Naturally, he made sure to compliment his young receiving corps. All of whom are complementary receivers.
“Hopefully you learn from your mistakes,” Manning said. “I don’t know what the circumstances are, or what upper management thinks, and what’s Plaxico’s situation, so a lot is going on there.”
Burress has caught 26 TD passes from Manning over the last 42 regular-season games. “I’ve called a few times and sent text messages, but that’s it,” Manning said.
Did you ever hear back from him?
“I have not.”
Finally, Manning lost his patience with the line of questioning. “No more Burress talk,” he said firmly. “That was a long time ago. … He wasn’t at the game yesterday, OK?”
Free agent Brandon Jacobs hopes he’s at the next game.
“I think he will be back,” Jacobs said. “I think he should be back. I don’t think he has a bad bone in his body, and I think everyone deserves a second chance.”
If I owned the Giants, I would be torn about welcoming back Burress, knowing that a leopard rarely changes his spots, yet recognizing that more than a few of his teammates genuinely like this particular leopard, especially on game day.
“I think if Plaxico wants to be back here, I think he will be back,” Justin Tuck said, “because I know this team, I know how we rally around people, especially our teammates. I would love to have him back. I think I speak for the majority of this football team when I say that.”
I would take Burress back under one condition: zero tolerance.
“I’m banking on it that it was an eye-opening issue for him, and I think he knows that another string would probably be his last string,” Tuck said. “He has to see the fact that the way he’s been doing it hasn’t been working.”
A life, even a season, without football, would be Burress’ prison without bars.
Coach Tom Coughlin didn’t want to talk about his Go To The Nightclub With A Gun Guy, another reminder Burress is standing perilously at the intersection of Compassion and Condemnation.
“It’s a fine line, the balance between mercy and justice,” David Tyree said.
If I ran the Giants, I would draft a Go To Guy, or trade for Anquan Boldin or sign T.J. Houshmandzadeh, and GM Jerry Reese knows that it would be folly to put all his eggs in a basket that might leave his team scrambled.
“This organization,” Tuck said, “really will not ever substitute character for on-field performance.”
You sell your soul to the devil, eventually you Go To Hell.