In hindsight, plenty have wondered why Marvin Lewis and the Cincinnati Bengals took repeated risks on Vontaze Burfict over the years.
Burfict, after all, developed into one of the NFL’s most notorious defenders while drumming up more $4 million in fines and suspensions with the Bengals before getting cut, going elsewhere and getting suspended for a year.
Now we have more insight from Lewis himself, courtesy of The Athletic’s Doug Haller:
“’Will you draft him?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Will you take him as a free agent?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ Our exposure to him was not huge, but after the first rookie practice, I told (Bengals owner) Mike Brown, ‘He’s as good as where Ray (Lewis) was (at this age.)’ Unfortunately for Vontaze — and he’s supposed to come see me — the game has changed. We spent a lot of time helping him change. I don’t know how much time they spent with him in Oakland helping him change. How to tackle. How to approach playing football, all those things. We spent a lot of time. I studied thousands of plays and coached him on it every day because it’s changed. And he has the perfect build that when he hits you, it’s like getting hit by cement truck. There is no stop. It’s all go. He’s just built perfectly that way. I don’t know that we took much of a chance. Duke Tobin, our director of player personnel, he saw it in him. He wanted me to spend the time. It worked out that he didn’t get drafted. I told (linebackers coach) Paul (Guenther), ‘I got you a guy.’”
Long story short — Burfict wrote Lewis and the Bengals a letter and the parties linked up. Lewis threw in a Ray Lewis comparison and off the two parties went.
Lewis went on in the interview to note what a great person Burfict is off the field, which was always the case during his time in Cincinnati. But Lewis and Co. were never able to get Burfict to adapt his on-field approach and it cost all parties time and again.
Zac Taylor used cutting Burfict as a way to send a message upon arrival. Now the NFL as a whole waits to see if Burfict will ever be allowed to play the game again.
If nothing else, it’s nice to have some insight into the how and why of the Bengals-Burfict marriage.
[vertical-gallery id=28536]