Plax Was Giants' Resource Curse

Some of you may know me I was one of Plaxico Burress most fervent and possibly irrational supporter.  That very well may be the case, however, since I essentially root for laundry, I'm ready to now move on san-Mr. Harris Smith.

Obviously, so are the Giants, but coming up with a new game plan will be tricky as Plax was a big part of their offense and whether the two are correlated or not, it's undeniable that the offense suffered last year when Plax was not starting.  That said, something CJ mentioned in an earlier post got me thinking:

The problem wasn't so much that the Giants didn't have Plaxico, it was that they weren't prepared for not having Plaxico.

That too me sounds like a text book case of a Resource Curse.  A resource curse, for those not interested in following the link to wikipedia, is when a country becomes too reliant on a natural resource to the detriment of their overall economic health.  Similarly, the Giants had such a tremendous singular talnet in Plaxico Burress that they failed to effectively develop their myriad offensive weapons.  Additionally, Gilbride was unprepared to cope with the situation after Plax was gone.  Despite having one of the best lines in football, a competent and confident QB and one of the most dynamic running back combos in the game, our O sputtered into the playoffs and failed to develop a credible threat once the receiving corp lost thier #1.

In other words, we were screwed once you took away the 'F it I'm going long' play.

There is plenty of blame to go around, Gilbride, Eli, Coughlin, the other receivers, but ultimately it is an failure of the organization, much like the state itself is to blame when nations find themselves at the mercy of the vagaries of commodity prices when they should have used their natural boon to invest in infrastructure and technology.

The good news is the Giants are a far more nimble an institution than the plodding bureaucracy of a sovereign nation.  Furthermore, Jerry Reese is a far more capable leader than his counterparts in say, Venezuela, Iran or even Russia.  The fact that the Giants didn't just go back to the well and look for another Plax-type receiver so they can continue strip mining the same section of the playbook should be seen as a smart, forward thinking strategy and Reese and Co. should be commended for again, being a step or two ahead of the general consensus.

So while I miss Burress as much as anybody, I'm glad the Giants are taking positive steps to remedy an untenable course and are repositioning the franchise for the future.

Hope I didn't bore everyone to death with this. 

Go Giants, Die Eagles.