When football ended, Miles Burris found his second act on screen

Miles Burris was seeking a new identity.

Everything he had envisioned for his life was slipping away.

The Sacramento, California, native grew up an avid Oakland Raiders fan, and fulfilled a childhood dream when Oakland selected him in the fourth round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He started 15 games his rookie season, with a highlight interception on Cam Newton.

Then came a devastating knee injury during his second season.

Despite playing all 16 games and recording 109 total tackles in his third season, his knee injury from the year prior was still impacting him.

The Raiders waived him before the 2015 season, and the next two years were spent rehabbing his knee and working out for other teams. But his knee wasn't the same and his phone eventually stopped ringing.

"Denial," Burris said of the thoughts running through his head.

"Even before it got to the denial phase, I wasn't on the Raiders anymore. I wanted to play my whole career there and wanted to have this decade-plus career, and that didn't happen. My knee retired before I did."

With his NFL career effectively over, he was forced to dig deep to find who he was beyond a football player. Self-admitting, it wasn't something he had given much thought to.

Looking for direction, he spent much of his time frequenting his local grocery store RedBox, renting whatever movies he could. He found comfort watching movies with his wife, but it also sparked thoughts of a different kind of future.

Burris remembered a time at San Diego State when he took an acting class as an elective course. It had enough of an impact on him to question if he could legitimately become an actor after his playing career was over.

With encouragement from his wife and father, Burris decided to find out. His wife enrolled him in acting classes near Los Angeles, and the couple relocated from the Bay Area so he could pursue the craft full time.

He landed a role on his first audition for a show spearheaded by award-winning comedian Randall Park. However the pilot for the show was never picked up by a network. But it was enough to instill confidence within himself to open this new chapter in his life.

"It wasn't a student project or anything, it was the real deal," said Burris. "From the first rehearsal, I was hooked."

After a few appearances in a several television series, he landed his first starring role in Disney's "Safety," based off the true story of former Clemson receiver Ray McElrathbey. This opened the door for more notable roles in HBO's "The Righteous Gemstones" and NBC's "Young Rock."

"It looks so more cinematic then when you're doing it in real life," he said comparing the process of filmmaking to the finished product.

"You see a set, you see beams and it looks a lot fuller. It's like, 'We're really in this library. 
We're really in this thing.' It fired me up. I loved watching the tape as a football player too. I kind of learned watching myself back on things and thought, 'Oh, I could have done that better.' And then, I do."

As he journeyed deeper into his acting career, he also gained a passion for screenwriting. He began using social media as a tool to convert his written work into sketches. In return, he's gained a massive following with 223,000 Instagram followers and 6.5 million likes on TikTok.

"It's a digital world. I was the kid that couldn't plug in the Super Nintendo, now I'll just sit here and edit stuff," he joked. "I try to tell actors all the time, 'Dude, just get in there.'"

His social media presence has served as an audition in it's own right, helping him land numerous roles. One of those roles includes portraying Raiders linebacker Phil Villapiano in the upcoming John Madden biopic starring Nicholas Cage.

It's fitting Burris joins the Silver and Black to silver screen pipeline. The late Carl Weathers landed a generational role as the iconic Apollo Creed in the "Rocky" film franchise that's grossed over $2 billion. Two-time Super Bowl champion John Matuszak played "Sloth" in "The Goonies" along with acting credits in a plethora of successful television series such as "M.A.S.H," "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Miami Vice." All-Pro cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha has become an award-winning actor, director and producer.

Now Burris, the man who so desperately wanted to be a Raider for a decade, continues to be one, perhaps on an even bigger stage.

"That was the blessing of having a shorter career is it was all with the Raiders," Burris said. "I wanted to be a Raider through and through and I was, just not as long as I wanted to be."

When asked what advice he has for any retired NFL players who are in the same shoes he once wore, he challenges them to dig deep to figure out who they are outside of the game.

"You've got time to really go after the next thing that's actually a passion," he said. "And you might not even know what that is because you've been so locked in for so long. But trust your gut and try different things.

"Whatever lights you up that you're simultaneously good at and fills a need - go for it."