What Plaxico Burress' Life In Prison Was Really Like

Publish date: 2023-12-26

After pleading guilty to carrying an unlicensed firearm in New York City, Plaxico Burress spent over 20 months at the Oneida Correctional Facility in central New York. In his first full interview after being released, Burress spoke about his time behind bars.

The receiver revealed that he and his fellow inmates watched football games every week, and he still tossed the pig skin despite being locked up, albeit at a different level than what he was used to in the NFL. "There weren't a lot of guys throwing perfect spirals in there," he told The Wall Street Journal. "I had to work to catch those balls." Burress didn't spend all of his time playing ball with the other inmates and said it was "a very humbling experience" to have his former teammates like Michael Strahan visit him in jail. The receiver also clarified, "there is nothing pleasant about prison."

Burress had a wife and son that he left behind after going away to prison. He talked to his son Elijah for 30 minutes every night while serving his sentence but missed a big part of the boy's early childhood. While in prison, Burress also missed the birth of his daughter Giovanna. "It was the toughest time of my life outside of anything that I had ever done," he told VLAD TV. Looking back on missing the big family moment, Burress admitted, "I think that was the lowest point for me." He also believed the worst single day for him in prison was the very first day. "You don't know how long an hour is" until spending time alone in prison, Burress told ESPN.

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