Plaxico Burress Has Tardiness Issues

When the New York Giants suspended Plaxico Burress last week, everyone sort of assumed it had to be something more nefarious than simple "insubordination"—like those domestic disturbance calls to his home or maybe short-selling Lehman Brothers. It turns out that it was just because he didn't show up to work last Monday, but as you can imagine it takes more than one or two minor incidents for a defending Super Bowl champ to voluntarily deprive itself of a primary weapon. Try 40 or 50. That's how many times Burress has been fined by the Giants since joining the team in 2005, which are numbers roughly equivalent to the number of games he's actually played for them. Despite the ring on his finger, it seems that Plax is the one Giant who hasn't bought into coach Tom Coughlin's notoriously hard-assed approach. He frequently "tunes out" Coughlin in meetings (when he bothers to show up) and has even walked away from him while being chewed out. Obviously, the fines don't trouble Burress in the least, so the Giants had to do something to get his attention. This leads to two questions: How much money does it take to get a multi-millionaire's attention? And, will it work? Attitude issues have followed Burress his whole career, but he does have that ring and millions of dollars to donate in fines, so playing time is the only incentive for him to toe the line. But as every athlete knows, teams need wins more than obedience, so what happens the next time the wide receiver "tunes out" his coach? Oh, yeah—-and the word is that NFL officials are not done looking into the domestic disturbance incidents their ownselves and that Burress may have violated the league's conduct policy by not reporting them (even though no charges were ever filed.) So he's still got that going for him too. • Giants' Burress fined 40-50 times before suspension [Fox Sports, via Shutdown Corner] • Source: Plaxico Burress' domestic spats draw investigation from NFL [NY Daily News]