Stars get special treatment

The New York Times has an article by William Rhoden about the comeback of Plaxico Burress:

On Tuesday, a day after Plaxico Burress was hit with two counts of illegal weapons possession, Jerry Reese, the Giants’ general manager, broke the news to Burress: He was finished for the season, suspended without pay and fined. On Wednesday, Reese, who helped engineer last season’s Super Bowl run, said that if Burress survived a blizzard of legal issues, he could be a Giant in 2009. “Provided he plays by Giants rules,” Reese said.
Without going into detail, Reese said the Giants’ front office was on the same page about Burress’s possible future with the Giants — namely that he had one — provided he was not in jail and provided he had a 180-degree attitude adjustment.
These are huge ifs.
Burress would face a mandatory three-and-a-half-year prison sentence if he were convicted of illegal possession of a loaded weapon, but he could end up facing a lesser charge whose penalty is considerably less severe. The fact that the Giants are considering taking Burress back is either a sign of tremendous loyalty or of a reluctance to publicly kick a man when he is down. “I just hope something like this makes the lights go on,” Reese said.
The lights are on, for now. Wouldn’t yours be?
Burress has disappointed teammates, angered the front office, and exasperated the head coach. This time he has infuriated the mayor of New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has led an initiative to ban illegal firearms, was adamant that Burress not receive preferential treatment. “Our children are getting killed with guns in the street,” he said Monday. “Our police are getting killed. I think it would be an outrage if we didn’t prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.” The mayor continued to speak out about the case when he chided the Giants’ president, John Mara, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for not quickly cooperating with law enforcement. Bloomberg told them the law says, “you see something, you got to call the cops. That’s the thing you should do,” he said. While the mayor’s outrage was prejudicial and premature (a lack of presumption of innocence), Burress’s recklessness is indefensible.
There will continue to be finger-pointing — beginning with Burress’s decision to enter a club with a loaded, concealed weapon, to club security who apparently allowed Burress to enter the club knowing he had the weapon, to Antonio Pierce’s failure to immediately call the police and to the hospital not reporting the shooting to the authorities.
Reese conceded that the Giants might be culpable because they enabled Burress, who had been fined numerous times. A less talented player would have been sent packing a dozen fines ago. But Burress was the key to last season’s Super Bowl championship and could have been the bridge to a second one.
The Giants, while not nearly as strong as they were with Burress, will continue to win. The road to the Super Bowl won’t be the waltz it may have been if Burress had been on the team. “We can take a punch,” Reese said. Even a sucker punch from a player. The Giants have played without Burress before and, in some ways, have become anesthetized to his routine transgressions. Burress has been fined several times since joining the Giants three years ago. He was suspended for a game earlier this season for missing a team meeting. He was also fined $45,000 by the NFL for abusing an official and throwing a ball into the stands after scoring a touchdown.
So on Wednesday, amid a firestorm, Reese called for a return to normalcy. Giants players would not talk about “distractions". Only about the Philadelphia Eagles. Everyone used the words “focus” and “moving forward.”
When the news media steered the conversation to Burress, the players steered it back to football. When a reporter asked guard Chris Snee how the Giants were dealing with the distraction surrounding Burress, he said: “What distraction? We had one of the most enthusiastic practices we’ve ever had.” Kareem McKenzie, an offensive tackle, made the point that Burress was suspended and the story had moved outside of the locker room and was no longer on the radar screen.
Now Burress is down to a final thread. The larger question —and this will be debated for several months — is whether the Giants should even consider letting Burress back next season regardless of what happens with the law. On Wednesday, Richard Berthelsen, the acting executive director of the players union, confirmed that it would file a grievance on Burress’s behalf against the Giants.
There is a thin line between compassion and enabling self-destructive behavior. The Giants have crossed the line once. Do they really want to cross it again?

Rico says this guy will fuck up again, and burn the Giants again. Stupid, on both sides...