NFL fines Vontaze Burfict $112,000

Posted by Michael David Smith on October 20, 2018, 4:54 PM EDT
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The NFL has taken a lot of criticism for not suspending Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict after his cheap shots against the Steelers on Sunday. But the league sure did hit Burfict hard in the wallet.

The league fined Burfict $112,000 for multiple violations on Sunday.

Although the NFL did not break down how much Burfict was fined for each action, the league said he committed unnecessary roughness twice, once for a hit on Antonio Brown and once for a hit on James Conner.

That raises the question, however, about why Burfict wasn’t suspended. He’s a repeat violator of the league’s player safety rules, and so far the NFL hasn’t been able to get through to him. Given his track record, this fine seems unlikely to do much either.

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93 responses to “NFL fines Vontaze Burfict $112,000”

  4. So they let him get away with the hits and then fine him afterwards when it has no effect on the outcome of the game – they must have thought he was on the Steelers or something

  11. Wait a minute here?
    So ur telling me a guy who got 3 unnecessary roughness calls against him and he wasnt ejected from the game

    But Dee Ford of the cheifs got ejected for a taunting foul.

    Sometimes I think they make up rules as they go.

    I see why I havent watched a game in over 4 years

  12. cletuspstillwaterjr says:
    October 20, 2018 at 5:08 pm

    Something tells me the league has informed him if so much as sneezes the suspension is imminent.
    —————

    Why give him the chance? Be proactive for a change.

  14. He’s either going to end someone’s career with a cheap shot trying to head hunt or another team is going to get fed up with his antics and Target him. I hope it’s the later, I don’t think anyone would she’d a tear if they saw him being carted off the field.

  15. This scumbag will get his justice when he’s paralyzed. No one deserves it more. And I hope the league had to collectively pay 50 billion dollars as a result. Well deserved to both of them. #karma

  16. Again the league is acting because of the outside noise and the bad PR that followed that despicable player’s actions.
    Improvisation all the time.
    Goodell must go.

  17. This is asinine. Multiple illegal hits in a game for a guy who meets all the criteria for a suspension including multiple, prolonged previous suspensions and you slap him with a fine. This is the 12th time since 2012 he has been fined or suspended. Get this low life out of the league before he purposely ends someone’s career.

  18. I would eject a player after 2 unnecessary roughness penalties. As it is you can end up in the locker room early after 2 taunting calls. I’m sure most players would prefer a bit of trash talking coming their way over a late hit, punch or a kick.

  19. Probably would have suspended him until the league watched the game tape and saw how feeble Burfict looked when he was run over by McDonald and Conner

  22. I recall PFT posters blasting Big Ben for sharing what Burfict threatened. They called him a tattler, soft, a Snowflake, etc. He was right

  25. I hope he donates some of that money to the Food Bank downtown Cincy.Volunteered there the other weekend. They could use that money

  27. Chris Jones gets tossed from the KC-Jax game for one cheap shot. This guy has a serious history, commits 2 in a game, doesn’t get tossed and won’t get suspended. There are no standards with regard to this type of behavior in the league at all. How is this guy skating with a fine? He’ll pay fines and keep doing it. The only way to get to him is going to be a stiff suspension.

  29. Guy has been playing dirty since high school. Was a complete psycho and team cancer at ASU. Showed up fat and tested positive at combine. Threw his Dennis Erickson under the bus in the interviews because after putting up with all his crap he finally suspended him for the bowl game that year.

    Everyone here knows what he’s done in the NFL.

    One thing he did in high school was trying to injure the knee of Matt Barkley. They played against each other, and at the time BOTH were committed to USC. So the guy was psycho enough to try to hurt his future teammate. He ended up going to ASU, but this guy is simply a psycho and the NFL is really acting weird on this.

  31. thefiesty1 says:
    October 20, 2018 at 4:58 pm
    How about suspend him for the rest of the season instead of fining him?

    79 23 Rate This
    =============================
    23 idiots don’t think he deserves a suspension.

  33. When is Marvin Lewis gonna grow a pair and CUT THIS GUY??
    The NFL needs to stop screwing around and eject him!
    Suspend him!
    Because fines are NOT working

  35. Ridiculous. The wuss bag Steelers cried to the league because Tez hit them so hard. Ben wet himself when he heard Tez tell JuJu “you’re next.” Pathetic.
    ……………………

    yes, the Steelers have always been afraid of the mighty Bengals. “we dey”

  36. The NFL is definitely getting too soft but saying Burfict’s actions would have been legal 10 years ago is wrong. Blatant shots to the head were absolutely penalized but the NFL is now flagging incidental/unavoidable contact which is sucking the life out of the sport. There are so many better examples of players being wrongfully penalized by the league this year. In fact using Burfict as your example that the league getting soft kind of weakens the argument because it gives the perception that fans will defend anything.

  37. I don’t remember which year it was but Burfict was caught punching one of our OL guys in the nuts. A blatant punch right to the groin on a short running play. The refs never saw it in the pile up. But the TV announcers did. He deserves to be fined for the A Brown forearm to the head, but ultimately he should be suspended for multiple games.
    The NFL isn’t enforcing his unnecessary violent fouls properly even when they are doing everything to reduce head injuries. That’s hypocritical. WHY ?
    This idiot has been fined multiple times and it doesn’t faze him. SUSPENSION !!!

  38. cletuspstillwaterjr
    Oct 20, 2018, 5:08 PM EDT
    Something tells me the league has informed him if so much as sneezes the suspension is imminent.

    So the 2 unnecessary roughness plays weren’t enough but if the guy sneezes he’s in trouble. Ya that’s what they’re waiting for

  40. What I don’t understand is you have a player that’s been suspended multiple times for intending to injure someone unnecessarily and then he goes out and does it again all he gets is a fine?! Isn’t that going backwards

  42. Sounds like the Bungal fans are the ones crying foul. Burfict just can’t get it in his head he is dirty.

  44. Obviously the league will not protect the players. I would expect the players will take charge of the issue. I would cheap shot the crap out of him.

  45. AJM says:
    October 20, 2018 at 5:35 pm

    I hope he donates some of that money to the Food Bank downtown Cincy.Volunteered there the other weekend. They could use that money
    ___________________________________________

    Me thinks someone doesn’t understand how fines work…

  46. Burfict is a dirty player, got it. I do not condone any of his ‘outside the rules’ actions. But the fines for the game are laughable, he wasn’t even penalized! Got it, his past antics have him in the leagues crosshairs but these fines are a joke. And the Steelers crying about his hit on AB is ridiculous; it was a legal hit. And who was talking about karma? Oh, yeah, AB. Juju’s hit on Burfict a couple of years ago was illegal, and then taunting a concussed player is classless, I don’t care who it is.

    This is just another NFL escapade that shows the rules mean nothing to the NFL. Oh, fans are complaining; let’s hand out some fines. Oh, the rules we implemented are unpopular; let’s stop enforcing them. ‘Oh, the rule is to not land with your weight on the QB, that’s the rule’. Yeah, but when you imposed the rule at the beginning of the season the NFL said nothing about that. Hiding the PSI results, etc. Goodell is a clown and the NFL is a joke, jerking the wheel back and forth on a weekly basis with no consistent application of the rules regardless of how bad the rules are. What’s next, fining someone for endorsing a brand other than the official NFL brand?

    I am not defending Burfict’s character as is a genuine menace who frequently plays outside the rules and threatens player safety. But these fines are a joke.

  47. nyneal says:

    You reap what you sow. He has shown that he has a propensity for illegal hits.
    ==================================================

    You represent the new school. Soft.

  49. “I hope he donates some of that money to the Food Bank downtown Cincy.Volunteered there the other weekend. They could use that money.”

    Thanks, AJM. I volunteer too, at a homeless mental health clinic.

  51. Nobody’s Burfict…sorry had to say it. That’s a good thing. We all cheer a good hard battle…bruises, bones etc…things happen. It seems butthead has made it his goal to hurt someone. Playing in the NFL is an honor…one he doesn’t deserve…JMO

  53. When its all said and done, let it be noted that Burfict will be the all time leader in fines and suspensions, dont forget the lost income as a result lol..

  55. Burfict had 22 personal fouls in 37 college games. Hes been fined 12 times in 12 NFL seasons, and remember not every penalty against him resulted in a fine. His record speaks for itself.

    Seems like a lot of fans want to give Burfict a pass, because they love old school football, and they hate the steelers. It shouldn’t matter if the cheap shots come from a team you hate, whether its the cowboys, Packers, Patriots, Giants, Ravens, Bengals, Steelers, etc. A cheap shot is a cheap shot. Just because the steelers have had players who took cheap shots doesn’t meant its ok for Burfict to do it. Suh took cheap shots for the Lions does that mean a bear a packer or a Viking can retaliate with cheap shots against the lions? No.

    So many fans also want to compare hits from HOF players like Joe Green, Dick Butkus, Lawrence Taylor etc, to Burficts hits, as if those hits have any bearing on todays game and rules. I miss the defense of old, but its just not allowed in todays game. Forget the insane penalties for hits on QB’s, but what burfict does is intent. Intent to deliver a blow to a players head, knees or ankles, intent to deliver a message, intent to injure another player. Listen to most active and retired players and they will all tell you, they played hard they played mean, but within the rules. One of the reasons so many fans around the country who arent form Pgh cheered for the steelers was because they played mean hard nosed defense, they inflicted punishment on other players. Those days are over. The steelers just like Dallas, Minnesota, Bears, Denver, all teams with a history of great defense have had to adjust to the new rules. Every team and player has had to adjust.

    The rules today do not allow for what burfict does. Stop comparing Burfict to teams and players who played under different rules.

    I cant believe there are people on here wishing paralysis on a player. After what we saw with Ryan Shazier last year, how could any human being wish that?

  56. let me see;

    a player kneels on the sideline harming no one and not only gets suspended, he gets blackballed out of the league and whitewashed from the team’s history in their latest video;

    another player waggles a finger at another and gets suspended directly;

    a known dirty player since high school has a history of cheap shots and walking on and twisting the body parts of players already tackled that stretches back YEARS, culminating in a game where he takes two blatant cheap shots THEN taunts another player and he gets…fined?

    what, exactly, are the NFL telling us?

  58. The NFL will not suspend a repeat offender for cheap, dirty, and dangerous hits. Yet it will call penalties for normal football tackles on QBs. Where is the consistency?

  59. Vontaze is a nice clean player. He is being victimized for not being a punching bag and doormat for every dirty Steelers. Who can forget dirty Steelers like Hines Ward and James Harrison?

  60. Burfict, and a fine? Shocking. Explain to me why he’s hasn’t been suspended, on more than 10 occasions, prior to this year?

    He’s has been a dirty player since day one in the NFL.

  62. So they missed two personal fouls….? Did the referees get admonished for missing not one but two personal fouls? Personal fouls by one of the most notorious cheap shot artists in the NFL. I saw the Brown hit it should have been a penalty and that’s it. So does Burfict get a fine now for every personal foul he commits whether it is called during the game or not? I’m a fan of the Steelers but I don’t think the Brown hit warranted anything other than an unnecessary roughness call. That’s it.

  63. I don’t condone what JuJu smith Shuster did last season, but is it any wonder fans and even some players liked the blind side hit on Burfict? People liked seeing Burfict get a taste of his own medicine. At least what Ju Ju Smith Shuster did was a football play, and not punching a player in the groin or twisting another players ankles like Burfict has done.

  64. Adding to the curious nature of the fines… the NFLs logic is flawed.. This guy has been fined and suspended a number of times. Doesn’t it follow that if what he did warrants a fine wouldn’t it also follow that with his previous transgressions he should be sitting out games?

    Who is running the NFL front office, the same brain trust running the Raiders?

  65. The NFL won’t kick Burfict out of the league. They’ll just fine him so much that he’ll end up paying out more money to the NFL than he’ll be keeping for himself.

  66. Average median income for American households is $60k….

    The Burfict fine equates to a $172 fine for you or me. Kind of like a modest speeding ticket or the cost to attend an NFL game (with parking, food, beer, etc.). Just really not significant.

  70. When a player is suspended, does the team have to carry him on the 53 man roster, like they do in baseball?

    If yes, I think having his teammates pissed at him because they would then have to play a man short would be big issue.

  72. According to Wikipedia “He has accumulated $4,038,534 in fines and forfeited salary through his career.” That was before the latest fine.

    You could say he had 4 million reason$ to change his ways but chose not to.

    He should be suspended without pay because $4M in fines haven’t worked.

  73. Y’all don’t see what’s going on here with the NFL do Ya? NFL won’t suspend Burfict cause y’all keep posting and keeping him relevant. Once you ignore him, he wll go away from NFL radar. Right now they are making advertising money off him. Big money. Surely by now, you know what this league is all about.

  74. Your comment will be deleted says:
    October 20, 2018 at 7:35 pm
    Adding to the curious nature of the fines… the NFLs logic is flawed.. This guy has been fined and suspended a number of times. Doesn’t it follow that if what he did warrants a fine wouldn’t it also follow that with his previous transgressions he should be sitting out games?
    Who is running the NFL front office, the same brain trust running the Raiders?
    _________________________________________________________________________________

    Just think about this…If he played for New England, that team would have no money and no draft picks…Just goes to show you all how SELECTIVE the NFL is when it comes to fines and penalties.

  75. kevo95 says:
    October 20, 2018 at 7:27 pm

    What a joke the NFL is ,they gonna wait till this clown puts a player in the hospital,you suck Rodger!
    _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
    You’re right kevo95. The NFL is run by a bunch of I Don’t Knows, led by the worst of the lowlifes Fraudger Goodell!

  76. defscottyb says:
    October 20, 2018 at 7:50 pm
    That name Vontaze LoL
    ————————-
    Vontaze is a cool name. Scotty, on the other hand… LOL

  81. Just put flags on the players already. Or maybe a button. If you press the button, they are down.

  82. That’s okay. But Juju better only see a fine when he decapitates Burfict with his next block.

  83. Leaving him on the field is a 50/50 proposition. Sure he might injure an opposing player, but then he may also get trucked again, like he did by James Conners and Vance Macdonald, and maybe the league feels the embarrassment is worse than any suspension they might give him.

  85. The NFL’s inaction on Burfict — in a year where a defensive player contemplating sacking a QB or tackling a receiver is a flag — adds to the WWE-ness that the NFL has been acquiring. Like in Week 17 later this year, when Steelers and Bengals meet again, and the AFC North is on the line — 1st Quarter “O WOW Look at that! Burfict pile-drives into the ground! That guy’s spine is broken! Who woulda thunk Burfict would do that!!! And there’s no flag on the play!”
    “Yeah, Joe, no flag on the play, but you can bet he’ll get fined on Friday at 4:55 PM EST for quite a few dollars . . . Some dollars he’d likely rather spend at Buffalo Wild Wings!”

  86. @ Your comment will be deleted says:
    October 20, 2018 at 7:35 pm

    Who is running the NFL front office, the same brain trust running the Raiders?

    —–
    The words “brain” and “Raiders” don’t belong in the same sentence. If memory serves right, didn’t the dolts in doltland want to trade for this zhlub?

  88. One day this turd will seriously injure or God forbid, kill someone of the field and that’s the day the NFL will get sued to the moon and rightfully so.

  89. Burfict’s history shows that fines won’t stop his unsportsmanlike behavior. This scumbag has been doing these things to his fellow players since college. He needs to sit for a year in the hopes he learns how to play the game of football under its current rules. For those that try to justify his actions, there is a major difference between an occasional illegal hit and Burfict’s repeated unnecessary hits. Don’t be so ignorant.

  91. Not a fan of either team but, all the Steelers fans crying about Burfict must have already forgotten about James Harrison.

  92. The NFL is really screwing up on this one. They seem like they’re waiting for Burfict to put a player in a wheelchair before they permanently take him off the field. Could you imagine the highlight film you could put together of all his flagrant fouls? That might be the lawsuit that the NFL won’t be able to overcome. Get smart Roger. Or is that asking too much? Someone in the league office needs to look out for player safety. Goodell obviously has too much on his plate to take care of this no-brainer situation. Burfict obviously isn’t playing with a full deck, and he can’t control himself. The fines mean nothing if he can’t control himself. If a player gets injured by a clean hit, that’s part of football. But what Burfict is doing isn’t part of football. He’s taking cheap shots after the play is over. There’s nothing tough about that. He’s a coward. It’s just part of his character makeup. It’s the reason he wasn’t drafted in the first place. He’s also cost his team opportunities to advance in the playoffs due to cheap shot penalties. Jack Tatum and Ronnie Lott were two of my all time favorite players. They were hard hitters, but they played within the rules. They were just tough guys. They didn’t need cheap shots to intimidate. There’s a huge difference between a tough guy and a coward. Huge.

  93. Initially, I thought Ben was being a wimp for whining about this in the news conference but after watching the video several times, I am convinced of only one thing – VB is the prime exhibit for Goodell’s commitment to player safety…

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