I don't want to make it seem like disagree with the Bengals' decision to support their unhinged lunatic of a linebacker in his appeal of what is - in a vacuum - probably a pretty excessive 5 game suspension. After all, they really have no choice. Despite being such a clear and present danger to the health of his peers that even his own teammates aren't completely safe, Vontaze Burfict is a very good player. Though recent history tells a much different tale, I would imagine that Marvin Lewis is eventually going to have to pay for being behind the wheel during the entirety of the decade that Cincinnati's championship aspirations have been stuck spinning in the mud of mediocrity. I don't know whether or not this is that season. I would assume, however, that the head coach whose innate ability to avoid the hot seat clearly hasn't rubbed off on players that can't seem to avoid being put in the NFL equivalent of timeout would want even the reddest of hands on deck in case it is. I certainly wouldn't want to be held responsible for trying to argue that Vontaze Burfict's high hit on a defenseless receiver was legal, but - since they condoned his asinine actions for this long - I would actually encourage the Bengals to stand by this appeal until it proves completely futile. The crazy thing is that this hit just may have technically been legal, but - keeping in mind who threw it - it's blatantly obvious that the intent was anything but. The NFL will never come out and say as much publicly, but turning a relatively run-of-the-mill 15 yard penalty into a 5 game suspension has to be considered a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' in douchebaggery, and dare I say that the perfect candidate will be sitting at home with the "prize"? If you think about it, Roger Goodell already missed the boat on this one, and he'll be damned if he's going to let the same scapegoat get away without being made an example of again. Christ, the Commish could have bought himself at least a month free of addressing CTE studies if he just put Vontaze Burfict in NFL purgatory after the first dozen times he tried to behead somebody. At this point, a 5 game suspension is really just the culmination of a bunch of .2 game suspensions for every fucked up thing that the culprit has ever done on a football field. We are talking about a guy that stands out as the most psychotic individual in a league whose participation requires you to have very little regard for the prolonged health of the human body. I'm not trying to retroactively penalize players, but - in this case - I have more sympathy for the boy that cried wolf than the goddamn deviant that claimed innocence.
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