The New York Giants Saga Reaches the Boiling Point

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Everybody’s pointing fingers in New York. Giants RB, Tiki Barber, has been undermining head coach Tom Coughlin the entire season; Jeremy Shockey appears to be Tiki’s tag-team partner in Coughlin-bashing. Now, Paul Schwartz of the New York Post lets us know that players are pointing fingers at each other, too. Well not each other but at one player in particular:

Giants defensive end Michael Strahan has come down hard on receiver Plaxico Burress for his lack of effort in Sunday’s 24-21 loss to the Titans.Burress failed to run hard on an overthrown pass from Eli Manning in the fourth quarter that was intercepted by cornerback Pacman Jones. Burress then made a half-hearted attempt at tackling Jones, who easily escaped for a 26-yard return.

“It’s a shame, because Plaxico is a great player and a good guy to be around, but at the same time you’re judged by your actions on the field and you can’t give up, you can’t quit, because you’re not quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on us,” Strahan said Monday on his weekly WFAN appearance. “We work too hard all together to have that type of stuff happen, and Plaxico is one of the guys who works hard.''

“I don’t quite understand what his motivation is, or what his lack of motivation is in those type of situations. I’m pretty sure I’m going to try to see what it is and try to see if I can talk to him about it.''

“He’s too great of a player to have people look at him and think he’s a quitter. Don’t be labeled as a guy who’s a sometimes player, I-play-when-I-want-to type of attitude. He’s too good for that.”

This is just what the Giants need. Coughlin publically smacks QB Eli Manning by calling him stupid Sunday night and then does a verbal drive-by on rookie DE Mathias Kiwanuka for failing to slam Tennessee QB Vince Young, forgetting that by doing so Kiwanuka would have incurred a 15-yard penalty, not to mention a hefty fine.

Next Tiki Barber cries again about more carries and blames the coaching staff. Jeremy Shockey acts surprisingly muted in his response, but still manages to do the raised eyebrow thing when it comes to mentioning Coughlin. And Eli, instead of heaping blame on his own shoulders and maybe even saying, ‘The way I was throwing, if I was Plax, I would have quit on the play, too,’ tells the world that Burriss should have bailed him out by attempting to break up the sorry pass he threw that Pac Man intercepted. Now Michael Strahan (and Antonio Pierce, by the way) have slammed Burriss.

Rather than take collective blame, the kids are standing around in a circle pointing their fingers at Burriss, telling the teacher - “He did it,” when, in fact, each of them had a hand in Sunday’s failure. While the kids are doing this, the teacher Coughlin is, through the press, telling the principal that the kids are unmanagable.

So the kids want a new teacher and the teacher wants a new class to teach next year. It’ll be interesting to see what the principal, Giants CEO John K. Mara, does with this class of talented Giants after they miss the playoffs.