Filed under: Football
Former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress is currently serving a two-year sentence for felony weapons possession charges. He's put in more than a year of time, and he's getting anxious to put in some work. Burress, who is doing his time at a New York state prison, has applied for a prison work-release program.According to ESPN, the NFL is willing to lift its suspension on Burress - which is supposed to last until he completes his sentence on June 11th - if he is granted work release. Here's the thing, though, if Burress is trying to play football as his work-release job, it doesn't look like it'll be easy to participate as a full-time member of an NFL roster.
In other words, the terms of the work release say that a prisoner can only work Monday thru Friday and return to prison on the weekends. That won't work well with games on Sundays.
In addition, prisoners aren't typically allowed to go out of state to work. There goes the idea of playing games on the road, that is, if the New York Giants or New York Jets, the two local teams, even want to sign Burress in the first place. If Burress can only get an offer from an out-of-state team, it'd be even more difficult to participate in the season this year.
Even still, Burress' lawyer is working to see if he can secure a waiver to have Burress bypass some of the requirements to participate this season. It's highly unlikely but "isn't impossible" an unnamed source told ESPN. The decision won't be made until September 9. We'll see what happens.