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Cited: Daily News

Senior is former NY Giants player Plaxico Burress in a Ulster Correctional Facility State Prison mugshot.  Of course, he was minus his trademark goatee as he posed for his prison mug shot.  With a somber look, Plaxico Burress, this is the first look at the Super Bowl hero behind bars.  As you can see his beard was shaved when he arrived at the medium security facility.  He was also not wearing his standard “bling”, the two diamond earrings.

He’s instead sporting a white T-shirt beneath a green prison-issued top and appears to stand a little taller than his NFL listed height of 6-foot-5.  Burress is staring straight ahead, his face betraying little emotion, in the photo.  The 32-year-old Burress, a favorite target of quarterback Eli Manning, was sentenced to two years in jail in a plea bargain deal.

Burress was carrying an illegal handgun inside a crowded Manhattan nightclub last November when he accidentally shot himself in the right thigh.  Burress left a 3-year-old son and a pregnant wife at their Totowa, N.J., home when he was locked up.  Plaxico Burress’ plight into jail spurs Giant sadness from former Big Blue mates.

It was a chilling sight for the Giants players. Just 19 months after Plaxico Burress caught the winning touchdown pass to beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl, the picture of him holding his young son moments before being taken off to jail this week created sadness in every corner of the locker room.

Just a year ago, he was one of them. Now he’s a world away in prison in one of the quickest and most drastic falls in New York sports history. Burress hanging on tightly to 3-year-old Elijah reinforced to the Giants how quickly things can be taken away if they don’t use their brain.

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“It’s nothing but sad,” Mathias Kiwanuka said. “I know how important his family is to him. His family is No.1 to him. That’s not just because he’s facing a long prison sentence, that’s just the kind of man he is, it’s the way he’s always been. Definitely, it’s heart-wrenching when you have to look at that and know what kind of guy he is.”

Nearly two years ago, the Giants began their improbable Super Bowl run by going down to Tampa and beating the Bucs in the wild-card round. The Giants are heading back to Tampa this weekend, but Burress is long gone from the team and a long way away from ever playing again. If he stays out of trouble in prison, he will be out in early June of 2011. If he stays in shape, somebody will sign him.

“It shows how quickly one bad decision you make can impact your whole life,” Osi Umenyiora said. “It’s something I’m quite sure he had no idea was going to happen. It’s unfortunate, but we’ve learned our lesson from that. So that’s the only positive thing you can get out of this.”

The Giants have been dealing with the Burress fallout ever since he accidentally put a bullet into his thigh the night after Thanksgiving at a crowded Manhattan nightclub. He was indicted on gun charges, negotiated a plea bargain and has began serving his two-year sentence. He could get out in a little more than 20 months.

It’s one thing for the players to monitor each step of the legal process, as many of them did, but quite another for reality to set in and think about a player who was such a big part of their success less than two years ago being all by himself behind bars.  There has to be a lesson learned for every player in every locker room in every sport.

“I’m sure it’s a learning experience for anybody anywhere,” Eli Manning said. “You never know, you got to watch out what you do. No matter what you do, one mistake can screw up a lot of things.”

Manning and Burress used to locker side-by-side. It was an unlikely friendship, but they connected and became close friends over the years. Manning feels for Burress’ family, and the picture of him with his son made the quarterback sad.

“Obviously, just feeling for his family and what they are going through,” he said. “It’s tough on him and to have (his wife) Tiffany pregnant, it’s going to be a tough stretch for everybody. We’re just rooting for him and hopefully it will go as smooth as possible.”

Tom Coughlin always talks about using game tapes as teaching tools. Well, if his players don’t learn from Burress’ mistake, from thinking they are above the law, that being a member of the Giants can help them wiggle out of trouble, then they are not paying attention.

Burress behind bars is a vision they are struggling with so far. “I can’t even imagine what that feels like, coming from where he came from, having to go through something like that over one terrible decision that could have happened to any one of us,” Umenyiora said. “Every one of us has done stupid things.”  The fall has been far and painful.

“It’s life,” Umenyiora said. “That’s the sad reality about life. We all have to learn from it. We all did learn from it. That’s pretty much all we can do.”

Burress was reportedly taunted by inmates at Rikers Island before he was transferred upstate. The Giants players have each other’s back, but there is nothing they can do to protect Burress.

“We fight against each other in practice and we go against each other hard during games. But it’s a community,” Kiwanuka said. “We understand how big the spotlight is on us, but what we don’t understand is what the spotlight can do for you in prison. It’s definitely not a good thing, and we don’t ever want anybody within our community to be in that situation.”

The bottom line: Burress’ mistake is a lesson learned for all the Giants to conduct their lives away from the field a bit differently. “If you are not, then you are a fool,” Kiwanuka said. “It came down to that one moment and it changed his life. A lot of people are reevaluating the decisions they make and I hope they take it seriously. I did some soul searching.”

The number that Burgess whirs now on his uniform is a lot longer.  Although through unhappy circumstances, the No. 17 that Jeff Feagles gave to Burgess in 2005 has been reclaimed this season.

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My Take: Well, as the old saying goes, “He made his bed now he must lie in it.”  He knew what he was doing was illegal and that he should not do it.  Yet, he was stupid enough to do it anyway.  I just hope that he wasn’t arrogant enough to think that his status as a Super Bowl hero would save.

Too many people that have money or notoriety seemed to get off when they commit a crime.  I don’t mean a pettily crime either.  I mean the kind of crime that requires jail time.  We have all seen it time and time again.  However, the system seems to have seen the light and Burgess is one of the first to be blinded.  I feel sorry for his family who has to wait until he is released.  I am sure they will miss him.

I am sure that he is wishing that he was back in a simpler time when he did not have to worry about something like this.  A time when he could go to the park and ring brass bells with his son and fly the small motorized airplanes with wood propellers.  At least his son will not be seen wanted signs around town for his father.

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