Plaxico’s Gun Trial Postponed Until June

The long this case has gone on, the longer I’ve started looking at it a bit differently.

At first, it seemed that Plaxico would get jail time without a doubt, and based on the attitude of the Giants’ front office, he’d never be back with the team. They’d already shown that if you’re going to be a negative distraction, you’re going to be one somewhere else (sayanora Shockey).

Then it started coming out that the Giants would take Plax back, which is a great story of a “second chance,” though it seems, really, that Plax has had several second chances. But, be that as it may, Plax would be a Giant, assuming he didn’t serve a long sentence and didn’t get suspended for the entire season by the League…. But, just in case he was going to jail and/or getting suspended, we would know by the end of March, and that would let the team figure out its draft plans.

Now, we’re looking at a potential delay of this case until June, and there is no promise that they’ll work out a deal before then. This muddles up the draft plans (though it does seem the team would still be looking WR in the first or second round regardless since there is no indication Toomer is coming back to the team), but also potentially delays the start of a jail sentence.

Finally, I’m starting to question, if Plaxico does come back to the team, what are the chances he keeps his nose clean and doesn’t run into a problem like this again? We’ve heard all about his many other personal problems now that this major event came to pass. It isn’t like this is the first time he’s been in some kind of trouble. What I really start to question is this: name a high profile football player (or perhaps players in any major sport) that went through a situation as potentially troublesome as this and came back to have a continued career without similar troubles down the line? It just seems that when you hear about something of this magnitude with a player, you never see that player come back, have a continued successful career, and not run into trouble again down the road. What kind of message does the front office send when they bring back a player like Plaxico (despite the fact that we all would agree the team would perform better with him)?