ex-ny giant plaxico burress pleads guilty to gun possession charge

yesterday former ny giant plaxico burress finally brought the long-running soap opera of his accidental shooting to a dramatic close when the plead guilty to a reduced charge in exchange for a 2-year prison term. with good behavior, he could be back out on the streets in only 20 months. unfortunately, for burress, that killed any chance of football for the next two seasons, at a minimum. maybe he'll get a chance to suit up for the 2012-13 season? lucky for burress, commissioner goodell announced that his one year suspension from the nfl will run concurrently with his jail time.

excuse me if i have no sympathy for plaxico burress! first, his gun-toting stunt - which backfired loudy - led directly (in my opinion) to the implosion of the remainder of ny giants' season. second, his poor strategy of digging in and hoping it would all blow over and he'd get back to football as usual was mind-numbingly dumb. third, and most obnoxious of all, blaming everyone (and everything) in sight for his travails was the last straw - mayor bloomberg ruined it, da morgenthal ruined it, nys mandatory sentences ruined it, my celebrity ruined it... and the whining went on, and on, and on!

the irony of all this stupidity, he could have taken a plea months after the incident - and probably gotten significantly less jail time. but his hubris? fear? poor legal advice? poor public relations? all ratcheted up the stakes and made doing real time in jail inevitable. and in the process, he lost at least one football season of playing time by dragging this out.

no tears - at least from me - for plaxico. hopefully, chilling out for 20 months may help him realize that ordinary people don't walk around with concealed (and loaded) weapons. and, whatever wild west delusions prompted him to walk into a crowded night club with a loaded gun, will seem like some long ago bad dream.