Tom E. Curran • E-mail

Root for NFL owners on matters of finance? You probably would have rooted for Goliath to beat David's butt about 2,900 years ago.

NFL owners are still irate at Arizona because their private planes didn't get out of town on schedule the day after the Super Bowl. Cry me a river.

But as much as it pains me to say this, NFL owners are getting screwed in the wallets and in the court of public opinion by players screaming for new and improved deals years before their old ones expire.

A perfect case in point? Plaxico Burress. Since signing with the Giants in 2005 for six years and $25 million, he's been a really good player. Not great. Really good. And he's been a better teammate and leader for the Giants than he appeared capable of being in the early part of his career with the Steelers. The arc of his career likely hit its apex in February when he caught the game-winning touchdown against the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

This week he commenced a wildcat strike at Giants minicamp because he wants his deal redone. With guys like Javon Walker and Bernard Berrian signing this offseason for $55 and $42 million, respectively, over six years and with both getting $16 million in bonuses (twice what Plex got), Burress feels his deal is obsolete. And, if all things were equal between now and the time Burress signed, he would be correct.

But all things are not equal. No, not at all. See, one year after Burress signed his contract, the owners and players agreed on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that saw the salary cap number rise. The $85.5 million teams could spend on players in 2005 grew to to $117 million in 2008. Which is why players like Plex are being paid scads less than players like Javon Walker.

But the public shouldn't be so quick to back a guy like Burress — or Brian Urlacher, who doesn't love the nine-year deal he signed with the Bears in 2003 anymore — just because the numbers seem out of whack. There's a lot more to it.

There wasn't an agent on the planet that didn't know in 2005 that a new CBA was likely coming in 2006. These guys got the security of long-term deals when they signed them. They could have waited. They could have signed two- or three-year deals. Don't think a team would have been willing to go short-term with Burress back in 2005?

But now owners are being made to pay through the nose not only for players who became free agents after 2006 but also for too many guys who signed before.

Owners can't tear up every seemingly obsolete deal and treat guys with years left on their deals like they are free agents.

In order to become a free agent, to gain the freedom of movement and ability, to auction your services to the highest bidder, you have to give something up; that something is security and a niche on a team. Is it reasonable for Burress to agitate for a raise? Yes. But not an entirely new contract that would treat him as if he were a free agent.

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Meanwhile, the Giants as a whole stand to suffer. The hallmark of that team was its unity and resourcefulness through the end of the regular season and into the playoffs. But once the parade's over, the confetti's been swept up and the players go back home, do you know what happens?

They start wondering about the impact of a championship, personally, professionally and financially. Then, a month after the game, free agency opens. Suddenly, players from teams that went 7-9 start raking in tens of millions of dollars. Friends, families and advisors point out the imbalance. The seeds of financial discontent are sown.

At the same time, the daunting task of defending a title is dawning on these players. The dynamics of that are never fully appreciated. You've gone from being the hunter to the hunted. Unspoken doubt about whether the level of play attained the year before can be reached again rises. And once you reach the ultimate, will the hunger to do it again exist?

"High-class problems." That's what Bill Belichick calls them. The Lions and Cardinals don't have to worry about them. The Patriots, Colts and now the Giants? They do.

And it's not easy. Tom Brady, signed a six-year, $60 million deal in 2005 with the Patriots, and nobody's heard a peep from him about more money. But plenty of other Patriots have gone to the mat with the team for more dough.

In other words, Burress' discontent isn't a signal of the Giants' demise any more than Richard Seymour's discontent was for New England a few years ago. But there have to be other players on the Giants who can deal with the apparent injustice and take one for the good of the team.

Like Osi Umenyiora. He signed a six-year, $41 million extension in 2005 and would like more. But this week he said to reporters, "I'm not talking about my contract anymore. That issue is a done deal. You see what people are getting now, and you feel you are in that caliber. But my son is OK, he is eating well, he is very big and fat right now, so I am happy."

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