Tom E. Curran • E-mail

DANA POINT, Calif. - The New York Giants have two plans in place for dealing with Plaxico Burress and his legal issues, Giants GM Jerry Reese said Sunday at the NFL Owner’s meetings.

Burress faces an illegal weapons possession charge after shooting himself in the leg at a New York City nightclub in November. He faces a mandatory 3 1/2 years in prison if convicted. His next court date is March 31 unless a plea deal is reached.

“We’re not anticipating anything,” said Reese. “We’re going to wait and see what happens with the legal process and we’ll let that take its course. We have a game plan both ways so we’ll see what the legal process holds and we’ll follow through with our plans.”

Reese, who reshaped the Giants defense this offseason, indicated earlier this month that New York would look for wide receiver help, regardless of Burress’ standing.

“We’ll try to continue to upgrade that spot, but we have good players at that position right now,” Reese said at the time. “We can go into the fall with these guys, but we are definitely going to try to continue to upgrade that position.”

The issue for New York is that Burress is a true No. 1 receiver capable of beating defenses designed to lock him down. That, Reese said, is rare in the NFL.

“(Burress) is a good kid,” said Reese. “He’s made some bad decisions. He’s not a kid, let me take that back, he’s a grown man. But he’s made bad decisions and he realizes that. The last conversation we had, he really believes the light’s come on. If the legal process goes his way and he doesn’t have to spend any time, hopefully we can get him back and move forward. But a lot of things have to happen before that. Obviously, we want him to come back and be on board with what we’re doing as a club.”

Reese also spoke some about the Giants moves to make their defense even more potent. New York added defensive lineman Chris Canty, defensive tackle Rocky Bernard and linebacker Michael Boley in free agency. Reese is particularly high on Boley.

“Michael Boley will play the (weakside) linebacker for us and he has unusual cover skills for a linebacker,” said Reese. “We like him in that respect because we play those guys like (Eagles running back) Brian Westbrook and (Jason Witten) from Dallas who is such a tough cover. Hopefully (Boley) can counter those guys on third down — the Westbrook types, and so many other good players we face. Michael can play the run and the pass but he’s an unusual cover guy against tight ends and running backs. Hopefully he’ll bring something to the table in that respect.”

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