Would the Giants’ 45-23 drubbing at the hands of San Diego turned out differently had WR Plaxico Burress not been disciplined by Mr. Sunshine? Jeremy Shockey thinks so. From the NY Post’s Dan Martin.

“I understand his point, but it’s really not fair,” Shockey said of Coughlin’s decision to bench Burress early. “It affects the whole team.”

Burress scored a touchdown in the second quarter, his second as a Giant. He finished with five catches for 52 yards.

“What can you do,” Shockey asked. “As players, we play. Coaches coach. But you should have your best players on the field. The whole offense suffered from him not being out there.”

“I was late to a couple of meetings,” Burress said. “He decided to sit me on the bench to prove a point, I guess. I tried to brush it off and keep my head in the game. I don’t think it helped us on that first drive. We couldn’t run a couple of plays.”

Burress, a free-agent signee from the Steelers, said he learned of the move just hours before the game when he was reviewing the playbook in his hotel room.

“Sometimes things just happen,” said Burress, who added that he was tardy by Coughlin’s rule that dictates you need to be five minutes early to meetings.


(had Burress turned up early, he’d have been present for an inspirational screening of Coach Coughlin’s favorite film)