On Friday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict has violated the NFL’s performance-enhancing drug policy and will miss the four games of the 2018 season, pending appeal.
Bengals’ LB Vontaze Burfict is facing a four-game suspension for violating the NFL’s Performance-Enhancing Drug policy, pending appeal, league sources tell ESPN. No appeal date yet.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 16, 2018
Now, we know what you’re thinking upon reading this report. Vontaze Burfict? Who could have seen this coming? The veteran linebacker seems like such a nice guy, with a sincere respect for the game and no history whatsoever of skirting the rules.
Or, you know, the exact opposite.
Burfict has never before tested positive for PEDs, but he has a lonnnng history with the NFL’s disciplinary process. He has repeatedly been accused of playing dirty, draws fines all the time and has twice been suspended for malicious illegal hits.
He’s the guy who did this…
And this…
And this…
And this…
And this…
So yeah, it’s not exactly a huge leap to accept that Burfict would have taken a little something something to add some extra menace to his hits.
If this were Major League Baseball, Burfict’s suspension would be stop-the-presses news to be debated for weeks. But because it’s the NFL, where violence is the whole point of the game and fans don’t give much of a damn about player health, Burfict will wind up serving his suspension quietly and returning in Week 5 as if nothing happened. Then he’ll go back to taking (and sometimes receiving) cheap shots.
