Why the Suspensions from Wild-Card Weekend Should have Been Worse
The playoffs are here and if you’re like me, you sat around waiting patiently for the first game to start. I love the playoffs but I hate this time of year when football seems to be coming to a close. It lets me know the weather is about to get warmer and where I am geographically (Texas) that’s not what you really want to hear!
What happened in the early game between the Chiefs and Texas was sad, on a number of fronts. It was sad Houston couldn’t cover the opening kick-off. It was sad that they really have no quarterback. It was especially sad to see former Eagle, Jeremy Maclin, lying on the turf, tears in his eyes with what many people feared was another torn ACL.
What made me angry, on a personal level, was the second game between the Steelers and the Bengals. The game made a clear case for the league to have full-time officials, and not part-timers. The defenses were hard-hitting in that game, yes, but some took it way too far. There are reports of players spitting on one another at the bottom of the pile. Others reports stated that players tried to intentionally injure other players. And, to prove that point, Bengals’ LB Vontaze Burfict was shown, after sacking Ben Roethlisberger, taking extra shots at the QB. While all of this was happening, the officiating crew, as a whole, all seemed to be saying “Let’s just see how this unfolds”. No one had the guts to eject anyone, and establish any order.
And this leads me to my main point of this article: late in the game, the Steelers were driving for an attempt at a game-winning field goal. They were out of timeouts, and needed a miracle. Now let me remind everyone that during the game, CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson was telling everyone how the Cincinnati coaching staff kept telling Burfict to use caution, and not do anything to harm him or his teammates. When I heard this, my first thought was “Why don’t they basically tell him to cut the garbage, and just go play football?”, a sentiment shared by many. As the game reached its critical point, the fact that no one on the Bengals coaching staff reined in Burfict was the teams’ undoing.
We’ve all seen the play. Antonio Brown comes across the middle on a crossing pattern. The pass went incomplete, and Burfict saw his opportunity. He lowered his shoulder, and blasted Brown in the side of his head. To watch the play in real-time, one may think “no big deal, that’s just football”. For me, however, to watch it in real-time and then to watch it, over and over, in slow-motion, and know exactly what just happened, it makes me sick.
Watch that play. Watch Brown, post-hit, as he falls to the turf, practically lifeless. He’s basically knocked out on that hit.
The reason it makes me cringe as it does, is that this year marks my fifth year as being a traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor. I used to work on T-38 aircraft for the USAF Pilot Training Program. Before that, I was a mechanic on the F-15 fighter. In one split second in February of 2011, life completely changed for my wife and me. I was struck by a hose that had 500 pounds of pressure behind it. The blow should have killed me. After a year of rehab, including 4 months at an in-residence facility, I was ready to resume what to me, is now my “normal daily life”. To others, it would seem a slowed-down version but it’s what I have now. I don’t ask for sympathy.
So when I see a player fall to the turf, lifelessly, it brings back so many bad memories for me. I almost hold my breath, waiting for that player to show signs of life. When they say the concussion protocol, I know exactly what that is. When I see the other party show no remorse for his actions, well, three games is simply not enough, in my opinion. A man deliberately tried to injure another man on that play. We all saw it. He didn’t try to stop. If I’m in Gooddell’s office, my minimum for that is 8 games. Let him lose half a season’s worth of paychecks, and tell him he’s fortunate he’s getting off that lightly. Burfict will probably have to deal with concussion issues later in life, as will most NFL players, but the issues Brown will face, both in the short term and the long term, because one player went too far, and an officiating crew didn’t go far enough, will far outweigh what Burfict may face.
I have not seen the movie “Concussion”. I may not. I’m afraid that seeing it will bring back very bad memories of the early stages of rehab. The anger, the outbursts, the not understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing, that is portrayed in the trailer, is all too real. I sincerely hope Brown will not face this one day. My feeling is that he will. And, that makes me sad and angry, all at the same time. It’s a maelstrom that, once it takes you, is very difficult to escape.
Gooddell once said the league wants to make the game safer for players. Show some leadership, Mr. Commissioner, and make the suspension tougher. What happened on that play was completely uncalled for. Brown will suffer. Maybe, as part of his suspension, Burfict should be made to go through an in-residence brain injury facility, to see the people there. Let him see the affects that the people there have to face, first-hand. Maybe that would force him to reconsider headhunting again. After seeing his face, post-hit, though…sadly, I doubt it would.
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Categorized:National