Henry Burris

Henry Burris, Jr. (born June 4, 1975 in Spiro, Oklahoma) is a professional Canadian football quarterback for the Hamilton Tiger Cats of the Canadian Football League. Burris spent one year as a reserve quarterback for the National Football League's Chicago Bears.

Burris has also played for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League.

Early life
Burris attended Spiro High School in Spiro, Oklahoma, and won four varsity letters each in football, track, basketball, and baseball. In football, he was named the Oklahoma Offensive Player of the Year as a senior.

Burris attended Temple University and finished with 20 passing records.

CFL
Burris went undrafted in the NFL, and signed a contract with the CFL's Calgary Stampeders in 1997. He spent the 1997 season on the Stampeders' practice roster.

He had his first, limited playing time in 1998 in relief of Jeff Garcia and Dave Dickenson, while dressing for all of the Stampeders' games. In 1999 he received more playing time as Dickenson's backup. He replaced Dickenson in the third week game against the Edmonton Eskimos, leading the Stampeders to a come-from-behind victory. He started the following two games against the Montreal Alouettes and BC Lions, leading the Stampeders to another victory in the former. He was injured in the third quarter of the latter, and spent the rest of the season on the injured reserve with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

He moved on to the Saskatchewan Roughriders for his first opportunity to be a full-time starting quarterback. He started the first 16 games of the Roughriders season, throwing for 4,647 yards and 30 touchdowns.

NFL
The Green Bay Packers took interest in him after the CFL season ended, and signed him to a contract.Burris began playing in the NFL in 2001, when he spent several weeks as the Packers' third-string quarterback, before he was released and spending the rest of the season on their practice squad.

He was signed by the Chicago Bears in the off-season. In six games for the Bears he completed 18 of 51 passes for 207 yards, with three touchdowns and five interceptions. He received significant playing time only in the last two games of the regular season. He was 8 of 22 for 50 yards and a touchdown against Carolina, fumbling twice, and 7 of 19 for 78 yards and four interceptions against Tampa Bay, for a 10.3 QB rating. While his passing was quite poor he showed better than average running ability for a quarterback, finishing the 2002 season with 15 rushes for 104 yards.

The Bears assigned him to NFL Europe's Berlin Thunder in 2003 where he performed respectably. Unhappy with being relegated to Berlin by the Bears, he returned to the CFL and the Roughriders, his former club. He immediately became Nealon Greene's back-up. A knee injury forced him to miss the better part of the season.

Return to the CFL
He returned to form in 2004, leading the Roughriders to the 2004 Western Final, narrowly missing advancing to the Grey Cup. The Roughriders lost the Western Final in overtime to the favored BC Lions.

In the off-season Burris rejected the Roughriders' contract offer in order to re-join the Calgary Stampeders. In 2005 he took the Stampeders to the Western Semifinal where they lost at McMahon Stadium to Ricky Ray and Jason Maas of the Edmonton Eskimos. In 2006 he once again helped the Stampeders advance to the CFL playoffs, hosting their second home playoff game in as many years, but lost in the West Semifinal to his former team, the Roughriders.

In the 2007 playoffs the Stampeders once again faced off against the Roughriders in the Western Semifinal (this time played at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, the Roughriders having hosted a home playoff game for the first time since 1988), and would once again ended up losing to his former team in a close 26-24 affair.

In 2008, Burris won his first championship, leading the Calgary Stampeders to a 22-14 Grey Cup victory, over the host Montreal Alouettes. Burris also captured the title of Grey Cup Most Valuable Player and was a finalist for the league's most outstanding player award.

In 2009, Burris led the Calgary Stampeders to a second place finish in the Western Conference. Trying to atone for a year in which he could not beat the first place Saskatchewan Roughriders (0-3-1) the Burris led Stampeders could not defeat the Roughriders in the Western Division Final, falling 27-17. This was Burris' third straight play-off loss to the Roughriders.

Burris quarterbacked the Stampeders to a CFL best record of 13-5 in 2010, finishing first in the Western Conference. Looking for revenge against his play-off nemesis, Burris lost to the Roughriders a fourth time in post season, 20-16. He won the CFL's Most Outstanding Player award for that season.

Burris' string of professional starts ended at the end of the 2011 season, when Drew Tate replaced him as the starting quarterback for the last three scheduled regular season games. Burris performed short-yardage duties for the team as the back-up quarterback. Burris returned to quarterbacking the Calgary Stampeders in the second half of the Western Conference Semi Finals against the Edmonton Eskimos. Burris was unable to lead a second half comeback throwing only 7 completions in 15 attempts with 0 touchdowns, having to settle for multiple field goals.

Entering the off-season there had been much speculation regarding the future of Burris with the Calgary Stampeders. The Stampeders seemed ready to move on and hand the starting job to Drew Tate while Burris had stated that he did want to be a backup quarterback. The Calgary Stampeders confirmed on January 3, 2012 that they had traded Burris to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for QB Kevin Glenn and OL Mark Dewit.

Career statistics

 * Games mean "Dressed For", not "Played In"