Will Plaxico Burress follow in Michael Vick's footsteps, going from Pro Bowl-caliber player to incarcerated and back to star?
Burress' agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said on Thursday night's episode of "Inside the NFL" on Showtime that he expects the former New York Giants wide receiver to be playing in the NFL next season.
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"I am not afraid to make the following prediction; Plaxico Burress will be playing in 2011. And he will play very well," Rosenhaus said, via The New York Post. "And it will be a very happy ending to a very tough, tough story for him."
Burress, 33, hasn't played since he accidentally shot himself in the leg with an illegal handgun in a Manhattan nightclub on Nov. 28, 2008. The Giants released him the following April. Burress accepted a plea deal and began serving a two-year prison sentence in September of 2009. He is expected to be released this spring after serving 20 months.
Vick returned to the league in 2009 after serving time in prison for operating a dog-fighting ring. He rarely played for the Philadelphia Eagles as a backup to Donovan McNabb that season, and he claimed the Eagles' starting job early this past season after Kevin Kolb sustained a concussion in Week 1.
Two former NFL players who also are analysts for NFL telecasts weighed in on Burress' prospects on the show.
"My concern would be what I saw with Mike Vick," NBC's Cris Collinsworth said. "It took Mike a year out of prison before he looked like Mike Vick again. Plaxico Burress is a guy [that] I don't think it will take him that long. But we'll have to see."
CBS' Phil Simms, who played his entire career for the Giants, asserts that Burress would be better served re-emerging with another team.
"I don't think he'll come back to the Giants," Simms said. "One, they are loaded at the receiver position. And I think it might be best for him to move on and connect with the coach or the receiver coach that he can have a special relationship with and further his career along."
