Vontaze Burfict suspension a ‘witch hunt,’ says Raiders’ Guenther

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Raiders defensive coordinator Paul Guenther passionately defended Vontaze Burfict on Thursday, calling the NFL’s suspension of the linebacker for the rest of the season a “witch hunt.”

“I think it was a witch hunt from the beginning, quite honestly,” Guenther said. “Somebody in the league didn’t want him playing football, and they got what they wanted.”

When the NFL suspended Burfict for the remaining 12 games — plus the postseason — the league noted it had warned Burfict that “future violations would result in escalated accountability measures” and that Burfict’s “extensive history of rules violations is factored into this decision regarding accountability measures.”

In effect, Burfict was not handed an unprecedented 12-game suspension for on-field conduct simply because of the helmet-to-helmet hit he placed on Colts tight end Jack Doyle during the Raiders’ Week 4 victory. Instead, the ban came about because Burfict had previously been suspended twice for violating player-safety rules and also had been fined more than $450,000 for his on-field actions.

Nevertheless, Guenther claimed the Raiders and Burfict were unaware that one illegal hit could end the linebacker’s season and took issue with the fact that neither party had been explicitly warned to that effect.

“Does it make any sense to sign a guy if after one infraction he’s going to get thrown out of the league for a year? No, it doesn’t,” Guenther said. “So I think it’s very unfair. It’s unfair to our team, it’s unfair to Vontaze.”

The Raiders brought in Burfict on a one-year deal to help improve a defense that finished last in the NFL in points allowed in 2018. Guenther coached Burfict with the Bengals for six seasons, which gave the linebacker significant familiarity with the Raiders’ scheme.

Guenther and Burfict are close, and the defensive coordinator intimated Burfict has taken the news of his season-long suspension hard — in large part because it jeopardizes his future in the NFL.

“I mean, how would you deal with it if you basically got your career taken away?” Guenther said, noting Burfict is in his late 20s. “He may not play football again. And that’s a tough thing.”

While it’s been a little over a week since Burfict had his suspension upheld on appeal, the news still clearly bothers both Guenther and Raiders coach Jon Gruden.

“Losing Burfict’s big. I’m still not happy about it,” Gruden said. “We believe in player safety, I’ll say that. We coach it, we believe in it, we really stress it. But 12 games? I’m not happy about that.”

Guenther said the Raiders will be monitoring the rest of the league to make sure other players are punished just like Burfict when disciplined for on-field conduct.

“They’ve opened up a whole can of worms as far as the next guy who’s going to do it,” Guenther said. “We’ve got to make sure, if we’re going to do this to this one guy, this one guy driving 38 mph in a 30 mph zone … that all the players are held to the same standard. To me, that’s where I have the issue.”

But really, there is no player quite like Burfict, who has so many repeated violations of player safety rules. Since entering the league in 2012, Burfict leads the league with 15 unnecessary roughness penalties — and that number goes up to 23 when including roughing the passer penalties, personal fouls, facemask penalties and ejections.

Now that the Raiders know they’ll go through the rest of the season without Burfict, Guenther said the team is prepared to play linebacker Tahir Whitehad as the defensive signal-caller. He also said Nicholas Morrow will continue to be heavily involved.

“Nick and Tahir have done an excellent job,” Guenther said. “Tahir’s really wearing the green dot for us, so he’s running a lot of the show that Vontaze was doing. He was already doing it anyway last year and this year. He’s a smart guy. Nick’s really come a long way — he’s playing at a high level. And some of these younger guys have got to come in and help out. It’s next guy up, and that’s how we’re going to go about it.”

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Contact Myles Simmons at msimmons@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @MylesASimmons on Twitter.