ApoPlaxy

(I'm going to assume that if you are reading this blog, you've heard that Plaxico Burress shot himself by accident in a nightclub vestibule last night. If this is news to you, I know, amazing, isn't it? Positively Vickian.)

With the obvious felon and stupidity moment of one Plaxico Burress, there's the small but telling point... are the Giants better off without him, not just for the off the field stuff, but just from a talent standpoint?

Let's go to the numbers.

Without his nominal #1 weapon today, on the road for an important division game in Washington, Eli Manning... went 21 of 34 for 305 yards, the first time he had broke the 300-yard mark in a long, long time. The 'Skins stacked the line (the Giants ran it 31 times for 101 yards, which is as close to stopping them as anyone gets, really), so Eli just roasted them in the first half, finding the dessicated remains of Amani Toomer for 5-85-1, Domenik Hixson for 5 for 71, and Derrick Ward for 75 yards on screens and check downs.

If they really did miss a deep threat, there was no way of knowing it.

Burress is 31 years old, in his ninth season, and hasn't been healthy for well over a year. He's had all of 35 catches for 454 yards this year and 4 touchdowns. His 12.4 yards per catch is the lowest number in his career. He had one very good game this year, in the opener against Washington. Otherwise, he never get more than 5 balls, and usually just gets to three a game. The history of 31 year old wideouts who can't control their personal lives really isn't good; this is the kind of nonsense that you can get away with in your 20s (see Irving Fryar, Joey Galloway, or Terry Glenn). Making these kind of mistakes on the downside of your career is usually professionally fatal.

Here's the thing about your New York Giants; they have become a personnel machine. And they are better off right now, especially since they seem to be using the Plax Mess as just one more motivational tool, seeing what Mario Manningham, Sinorice Moss, Hixson and Steve Smith has to bring to the table, rather than a broken-down felon and head case.

This isn't like the Eagles when Terrible Owens went off the reservation, and they had no better ideas from the back-ups. Smith and Hixson may be better than Burress even before he went NRA on his leg, and certainly after. This may be a mild embarrassment now, but the simple fact of the matter is that the idiot just did his team a favor.

Like they needed it.