The Oakland Raiders knew they were taking a big risk when they signed former Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict during the offseason. Now, Raiders odds to win the Super Bowl took a hit. Four games into the season, the Raiders will be without Burfict for the rest of the year. This due to the volatile linebacker being suspended by the league for his helmet-to-helmet hit on Indianapolis Colts tight end Jack Doyle on Sunday.
Vontaze Burfict was ejected in the second quarter of Sunday’s 31-24 win for the Raiders. According to league sources, he will be not be paid during the suspension. This covers the postseason as well. The league cited repeated violations of unnecessary roughness rules.
Super Bowl 2020 Raiders Odds
NFL vice president of football operations Jon Runyan wrote a letter to Vontaze Burfict explaining why the league decided to suspend him for the rest of the year.
“There were no mitigating circumstances on this play,” it said. “Your contact was unnecessary, flagrant and should have been avoided. For your actions, you were penalized and disqualified from the game. Following each of your previous rule violations, you were warned by me and each of the jointly-appointed officers that future violations would result in escalated accountability measures. However, you have continued to flagrantly abuse rules designated to protect yourself and your opponents from unnecessary risk.”
Vontaze Burfict Looking For Work
Burfict’s agent Lamont Smith said that the veteran linebacker will appeal the suspension. Also, that he expects the appeal to be heard this week. Smith also said that he believes “the 12-game suspension is excessive and the play that triggered the suspension was a football play.” Many Colts fans do not agree.
“It’s a tough decision, it’s a tough call. I think it was a flag,” Raiders coach Jon Gruden said Sunday. “It was very well-documented that the league was going to review those plays this year in New York City.
So, that’s what happened and I’ll wait to hear what their reasoning was. But it was a penalty, Vontaze Burfict went in there with his head down, it was called and, unfortunately for us, it was an ejection.”
What does this mean for the Raiders moving forward? NFL Week 5 will be telling.
