Thank goodness that dumbass Vontaze Burfict got suspended for the year. We all knew what was gonna happen at some point, better to just get it out of the way now.

I hope he loses his inevitable appeal and this was the last we see of him. This kind of head hunting would have been seen as dirty a decade ago, even before we started getting worried about these hits. He’s never going to stop launching himself like a missile. The Raiders knew this would happen and they signed him anyway so they could get a few games out of him. You want to know how dirty that hit was? Bill Romanowski thought Burfict shouldn’t be suspended. The opposite of whatever Bill Romanowski believes about dirty hits is the truth. If you ever find yourself agreeing with Bill Romanowski, please see a doctor.

Honestly though he probably wouldn’t have been suspended if it wasn’t Vontaze Burfict. We had a few bad hits this past week, all deserving of at least major fines. Derek Barnett of the Eagles delivered a completely and utterly unnecessary dirty hit on the Packers Jamaal Williams, who got carted off. In a vacuum I might even argue this was a dirtier hit than Burfict’s. Williams was wrapped up, going backwards, his momentum stopped, all well before Burnett launched himself full speed into him head first for no valid reason. That hit deserved a suspension, imo.

Also this week, we had the Josh Allen hit, which was far more of a grey area as Allen was a runner and I do now believe that Jones intended to lead with his shoulder for the most part (The above angle shows it fairly clearly, I think it just went down too fast to make it clean). But it was still unnecessarily rough, injured Allen, and I hate it when defenders just go for a hit instead of a tackle. I had no problem with Jones being penalized and if he gets fined I won’t be upset. Didn’t deserve a suspension, imo, but I get why Bills fans were angry about it.

In the Bucs/Rams game on the Marcus Peters pick, Bucs lineman Donovan Smith absolutely obliterated Peters, but out of every hit on this list this one is probably the cleanest. Still not great though, still helmet to helmet, and Peters had to leave the game.

But none of these guys to my knowledge has Burfict’s history. Burfict famously delivered the hit on Antonio Brown that many people half-jokingly speculate caused his current madness. Burfict famously twisted players ankles in the pile.  Vontaze is either completely stupid or a monster and he needs to stop playing football. For his own health and the health of others. I don’t know what he will do without football (probably lots of weed) but I don’t care. Get him off the field.

There’s a part of me that actually hopes the NFL starts fining players for these hits more and more. Like every hit that doesn’t feature an honest attempt to wrap up. There has to be some way to dis-incentivize these missile hits and hard smacks. All they really seem to do is look badass on replays and occasionally knock a ball lose. But how many highlights have occurred where a player bounced off a hit and kept going for extra yards because the defender just went for the pain instead of the tackle? You can still deliver a good hit and also tackle someone at the same time. These big hits are a lot less fun to watch for everyone these days thanks to the newfound concerns for injuries. They seriously need to find a way to slow them down.