Sports Thread #1 for 8/20/09: Burress To Go To Jail For 2 Years

Used as a political pawn, treated like one at the end of the day.

Plaxico Burress, the former Giants receiver, pleaded guilty on Thursday morning in his weapons-possession case in a deal with Manhattan prosecutors that will send him to prison for two years.

Justice Michael H. Melkonian of State Supreme Court accepted the guilty plea. Along with the two-year prison sentence, Mr. Burress, 31, will be sentenced to two years of post-release supervision.

Mr. Burress was indicted earlier this month on charges relating to an episode in November 2008, when he accidentally shot himself in the thigh in a Manhattan nightclub. The Giants released him in April without waiting for the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

And get this from the Newark Star-Ledger. They said that Burress turned down a deal of going to jail for only two or three months, instead choosing to testify to the grand jury to prove, in his view, innocence.

But even with that now terrible decision for Burress to reject this plea deal, he will spend time in jail for two years. Unlike Donte Stallworth, who runs scot free, the former Giants wide receiver's career is in serious jeopardy. And to some, it is already over.