Now that Plaxico Burress has written the latest chapter of “When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong”, he has insured a legendary ranking among the dumbest shootings ever. He avoids a Darwin Award for surviving, but gets major negatives for shooting himself (at least Dick Cheney shot a lawyer). This of course presents a perfect excuse to review which athletes have significantly shot themselves in the foot in recent history:

Kellen Winslow Jr

Ever since his “soldier” days at Miami, Winslow knew he was invincible and completely full of himself. Then he missed all but 2 games of his rookie year in the NFL with a broken leg. It could happen to anyone, but The Chosen One was meant to be special. So in the spring before his second year, Winslow tested his invincibility on his Suzuki and proceeded to break his ankle–costing him his second year and a staph infection. While he has a set of legs to stand on now, its clear he’s also lucky to miss a Darwin Award like Plaxico.

Kobe Bryant

Kobe won all 3 of his NBA championships riding the coattails of Shaquille O’Neal, so it makes perfect sense that Kobe would drive Shaq out of Los Angeles so he could win another. In 2004, Bryant said he was “tired of being a sidekick” and his decision to stay in Los Angeles depended on what the Lakers would do with Shaq. Bryant even considered signing with the Clippers but ultimately stayed with the Lakers the day after O’Neal was traded to Miami. During Kobe’s rape charge he also told police that Shaq pays his mistresses up to $1M to keep quiet. Shaq reciprocated by turning around an awful Miami franchise to win another championship, while Kobe is still trying to get his first Shaqless NBA title.

Chad Ocho Cinco

Aka Mr. Chad Johnson, Chad thought he had the most original self-promotional marketing plan for the 2008 season: he legally changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco so he could boost his jersey sales. Only problem–the NFL put in their order for the seasons jerseys back in April. That means this year Ocho Cinco fans will be stuck with uniforms that now legally have the wrong name. It’s already hard enough to sell jersey given that he plays for the Bengals. If he’s stuck in Cincinnati, the best way to make a Bengals jersey fashionable is to bring back Zubaz

Rafael Palmeiro

The only thing worse than getting caught using performance enhancing drugs is getting caught using PEDs 5 months after swearing against them under oath in front of congress while emphatically waving your finger on national tv. Palmeiro effectively jeopardized if not completely nixed his Hall of Fame chances with that stunt despite a career that included over 500 home runs, 3 Gold Gloves, and 4 All Star appearances.

Jay Williams

Jay Williams left Duke with a National Championship, a Naismith award, and Wooden Award. Soon after, the Chicago Bulls drafted Williams as the second overall pick in the 2002 NBA draft. Life was looking good for Williams, until he decided to race a Yamaha crotch rocket through the tree lined streets of Chicago. In what could best be described as a E Hollywood true story, Williams had a nasty crash, fractured his pelvis, severed a nerve in his leg, and blew out his left knee. Williams required months of rehab, just to be able to walk. He never returned to an NBA court again.

Sid Vicious

The 6′9″ 320 lbs. Sid Vicious was a wrestling phenomenon, but his wrestling game was simply pure power. The suits at the WCW thought that Sid would be more marketable with some areal moves, so they pushed him to attempt a high risk move. During Sid’s match with Steiner, he jumped off the middle turn buckle and attempted to deliver a leg kick. What happened was truly unexpected: Sid landed on his left leg, instantly blowing out his tibia and fibula. This was all caught on camera:

That was basically the apex of a wrestling career that fell even faster than its meteoric climb. Vicious never had a major match again, and wrestled his last match in front of 657 fans.

Jayson Williams

He was an NBA all-star for the New Jersey Nets. In 1999, he retired from the NBA, and took a job as a studio analyst for The NBA on NBC. Williams had been lucky in his life. In 1994, it was rumored that he had shot a semi-auto in the parking lot of the Meadowlands. In 2000, Williams wrote in his autobiography that he nearly shot New York Jets wr Wayne Chrebet at his skeet-shooting range. Unfortunately, Williams luck ran out. In 2002, he shot and killed his limo driver. Reports state that Williams was playing with his shotgun, when the gun accidentally fired, killing Gus Christofi. Christofi’s family settled with Jayson for $2.75 million. Williams still faces a retrial on reckless manslaughter charges.

Rory Sabbatini

There’s nothing wrong with a little trash talk (hell, thats why we made IGN), but trash talking Tiger Woods before playing against him is a new category of stupid. On day 3 of the 2007 Wachovia Championship, Sabbatini led the field by one stroke and said about Tiger, “The funny thing is, after watching him play last Sunday, I think he’s more beatable than ever.” By the end of the day Sunday, Woods finished up 5 strokes on Rory and won the tournament.
But thats not all. Later that year, Tiger went on to crush Sabbatini by 8 strokes in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Then a few months later Rory entered a tournament hosted by Tiger and became the first person in the history of the Target World Challenge to withdraw early. It was due to a convenient case of “personal reasons” that had nothing to do with being in last place.

Coaches Honorable Mention:

Mike Price - Alabama’s football coach from December 2002 - May 2003. After landing the dream job that effectively makes him the Archbishop of Alabama, Price was fired after being seen at a strip club and allegedly having a woman in his hotel room not named Mrs. Mike Price.
George O’Leary - Notre Dame football coach for 5 days in 2001. O’Leary landed one of the great coaching jobs in sports until it was revealed that his resume included a masters degree from an imaginary school “NYU-Stony Brook”, and 3 varsity letters from the University of New Hampshire football program, where he never played a down.