Bengals’ Vontaze Burfict suspended three games, plans to appeal
The NFL has come down with the hammer on one of the league’s hardest hitters.
Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict has been suspended for the first three games of the 2016 NFL season. Repeated violations of player safety rules, capped in Saturday’s massacre of a playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, forced the league to come down hard on Burfict.
It was Burfict’s shot on defenseless Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown that caused him to enter the concussion protocol and helped the Steelers beat the Bengals. NFL vice president of football operations Merton Hanks imposed the suspension on Burfict, saying that he “placed his opponent at unnecessary risk of injury and should have been avoided.”
Burfict also was fined $50,000 for a cheap shot on Baltimore Ravens rookie tight end Maxx Williams in a Week 17 incident. He’ll have the chance to appeal both punishments, and it appears he will invoke that privilege.
Burfict has been called for four unnecessary roughness penalties this season and already had been fined four times this season for violations of player-safety rules. If the suspension is upheld at three games, Burfict would be facing a loss of $502,941 worth of salary.
The league this season has suspended Odell Beckham Jr. and Aqib Talib for on-field aggression, but those were isolated incidents. In past seasons, the league has hit safeties Brandon Meriweather (two games), Dashon Goldson (one) and Michael Griffin (one) for repeated rules-violations suspensions. But Burfict’s three are believed to be the most for this offense.
It’s clear with this suspension that the NFL is sending a message: Stop hurting people on the field, Vontaze, or we’ll suspend you for a full season. Or longer.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
