Plaxico Burress’s NFL career was put on hold during the 2008 season, when he accidentally shot himself and then went to prison for 20 months for carrying a gun illegally. When he got out of prison in 2011, he signed with the Jets.
Burress now says the two experiences were a lot alike.
At the time of the infamous shooting, Burress and the Giants were 10-1 and the favorites to repeat as Super Bowl champions, and Burress was just months into a new five-year, $35 million contract. The shooting ended Burress’s tenure with the Giants, whose season went into a tailspin afterward, and when Burress returned to the NFL he signed a one-year, $3 million contract with a mediocre Jets team.
“They’re both kind of similar because when I walked into prison my first day, I was like, ‘Damn, man, you are a fucking loser,” Burress said on The Joint Venture Show. “And I had the same damn feeling every day I walked through the door with the Jets. I was like, ‘Damn I hope we can win this weekend.’ Loser.”
Burress caught 45 passes for 612 yards and eight touchdowns for the 2011 Jets, who went 8-8 and missed the playoffs. He then played briefly for the Steelers in 2012, and his career ended with a training camp injury in Pittsburgh in 2013.
