Vontaze Burfict Took A Cheap Shot At His Own Running Back During Training Camp, Because...Well...Duh

#Kerfuffle
Burfict goes low on Gio. RBs coach Caskey not happy.#Bengals pic.twitter.com/DZ8Ae11cgM

— Jay Morrison (@JayMorrisonCMG) August 1, 2017

Eifert and Burfict had some words after he went low at Giovani Bernard's legs. Eifert did not look happy. pic.twitter.com/I8UiAKqD0K

— Katherine Terrell (@Kat_Terrell) August 1, 2017

You know what they say, the key to success is practicing how you would play. So, in the case of Vontaze trying to hyperextend his own running back knee on a relatively meaningless training camp rep, practice makes Burfict.

Honestly, I don't see what all the commotion was about. I get that you don't want to see friendly fire between teammates, but you pretty much give up the right to be upset by it when you continue to employ the NFL's preeminent psychopath. If Vontaze Burfict had any situational awareness whatsoever he wouldn't have tried to decapitate Antonio Brown when his team had a late lead in a playoff game, so I'm not exactly taken aback by this particular Bengals' inability to change it's stripes while playing amongst other Bengals. Testing the durability of your tailback's tendons probably isn't the best idea, but if you drew a gridiron on his lawn I'm pretty sure Vontaze Burfict would be at risk of concussing his own niece if she came across the field with her head down during a backyard game of two-hand touch. He's like Pavlov's most undisciplined dog except his stimulus is a whistle instead of a bell and his automated response is an unquenchable thirst....for blood. Telling Vontaze Burfict he can't tackle is like telling a woman that a particular guy is off-limits...if that woman had arms that looked like thigh-ceps and insatiable appetite for destruction.

I'm not trying to say that I would excuse the behavior of a linebacker whose actively trying to fill up his own team's PUP list, but I am saying that the Cincinnati Bengals have done just that by giving him    a defensive backfield to roam freely all these years. If they really wanted to get their lunatic of a linebacker ready for the season without with endangering anybody's else then they would have stuck him in a cage with a bunch of actual Bengals that were flown over from Nepal after not having eaten for a week, because this half-contact bullshit couldn't possibly prepare him for some intent to injure (i.e. get him in mid-season form).