Burgess attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland,[1] where he played football and basketball.

[citation needed] As a senior, Burgess recorded 102 tackles and four sacks and was an all-state selection at outside linebacker.

[2][3] After graduating from high school, Burgess attended the University of Mississippi, where he led his team as a senior in 2000 with 9.5 sacks.

By the middle of the season, he worked his way into the lineup thanks to his success as a pass rusher; most notably, he had six quarterback sacks over a three-game span.

On December 23, 2007, Burgess and teammate Warren Sapp were involved in an altercation with NFL referees near the end of the second quarter of the Raiders' game at Jacksonville.

[5] The incident began when linesman Jerry Bergman mistakenly assumed that the Raiders wished to decline a Jacksonville ten-yard penalty.

Sapp, the defensive captain, began speaking with referee Jerome Boger, indicating that the Raiders instead wished to accept the penalty.

Finally, the coaches and officiating staff entered the field and began physically separating and removing the arguing players.

On August 6, 2009, the Patriots traded their original third- and fourth-round selections in the 2010 NFL draft to the Raiders in exchange for Burgess.