PITTSBURGH – Good for Tom Coughlin. Good for Coughlin for tightening the noose around Plaxico Burress.
Burress missed a Saturday treatment he said he wasn’t aware he had to attend for his stiff neck and was benched for the first quarter of Giants 21, Steelers 14.
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This should have been a column about these tough, iron-willed Road Warriors, who found a way to win the fourth quarter, who found a way to let Eli Manning, who threw the winning 2-yard TD pass to Kevin Boss and was not sacked, win his duel with Ben Roethlisberger, who was intercepted four times and sacked five.
But then along comes Burress, whose latest, tired, mindless, selfish stunt could have cost his team dearly.
So Burress, clad in short sleeves, shivered in the shade and watched Domenik Hixon take his place in the starting lineup before contributing three catches for 15 yards in the face of relentless double coverage.
There was great irony as Burress sat alone at the end of the bench, a banner directly behind him: the words “ZERO TOLERANCE” in gold lettering against a black background sandwiching a Steelers insignia.
Coughlin – with the full backing of Giants management and ownership – should next put Burress on Zero Tolerance alert.
The next time Burress makes a mockery of Coughlin and team rules, suspend him again. Because enough is enough already. No mas. Coughlin and the Giants must no longer be held hostage to one player’s whims.
After being rewarded with that fat new contract, the $35 Million Question now becomes: Will the message ever get through?
Burress has plenty of money, so the 45G he was fined last week was merely a deck chair off the Queen Mary. Take away Gameday from a proud Gameday Warrior and you hit him where it hurts.
“You gotta follow the regulations and rules of the team,” Coughlin said.
It is hard for his teammates not to like Burress, but it is growing increasingly hard for them to like Plaxico being Plaxico.
The Giants have embraced Coughlin’s team concept and are determined to chase another championship without Distraxico.
“We’re like a big herd; we just keep moving forward,” Shaun O’Hara said.
It would be nice if Burress were to join the migration. Coughlin opened the doghouse doors for the receiver with 11:27 left in the second quarter. The Giants trailed 7-3 at the time.
Burress’ explanation for missing the treatment? He had taken all the Friday practice reps. “I thought I was in the clear,” he said.
“I can only do things that I know I’m supposed to do. I was at work. I just wasn’t in treatment, so . . . ”
Was it a miscommunication?
“It had to be,” he said.
Was the punishment fair?
“That’s what he [Coughlin] picked,” Burress said. “I didn’t moan and gripe over it.”
There was no hint of remorse, although Brandon Jacobs revealed that Burress had apologized to him. “It’s my bad,” he told the running back.
Teammates have spoken with Burress about his bad behavior.
“It just happens,” Manning said. “We don’t like it, but we’re gonna move on. Obviously we want him out there. We didn’t make a big deal about it. No one talked about it. We just went about our business.”
The business of being a team. “We want him out there,” Amani Toomer said, “but we do have team rules. I think everything that happened was how it had to happen. It’s not a good situation for our whole team. I think he’s learned that our team is counting on him and hopefully we’ll put this whole situation behind us.”
“You don’t really pick sides in a situation like this,” Justin Tuck said. “He’s your teammate, he’s always gonna be your teammate, and that’s your coach, and he’s always gonna be your coach. You just take it for what it is and you go out there and keep playing.
“We don’t really feel as though one guy, regardless of who it is, is gonna make or break our game or our season,” Tuck added.
Coughlin showed his team the vicious Margarito-Cotto welterweight slugfest Saturday night. Burress had better start fighting the other team instead of his head coach.