The Bengals don’t expect to have Vontaze Burfict for the first four games, but coach Marvin Lewis said the team is prepared to play without him.
“We were aware of it since the end of the season so whatever happens, happens. It doesn’t hold us back,” Lewis told Jim Owczarski of The Cincinnati Enquirer. “We’re going to miss a player, likely, for a few weeks, but there’s nothing we can do about it. That’s the way it goes. You’ve got to do things within the scope of what the players are asked to do all the time, and that’s important. Just gotta do it the right way.”
The Bengals have known Burfict faced a four-game suspension for violating the league’s performance enhancing drug policy. He tested positive December 31, per Owczarski, but an arbitrator has yet to rule on Burfict’s appeal.
“There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s part of the system. It happens to people all the time,” Lewis said. “They’re responsible for what goes in their body, no matter how some things are what people use every day. But yet unless you have the right paperwork, you’re not allowed.”
Burfict reportedly plans to argue his positive test came from medications prescribed following a collision with Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, a defense Smith-Schuster has spurned.