JuJu Smith-Schuster Implanted Vontaze Burfict Into The Turf

A big time hit that landed Juju with a 15-yard penalty and a lifetime of looking of his shoulder for his comeuppance from likely the last player in the League you want pissed off at you. Vontaze was laid out on the cart heading back to the locker room and couldn’t even make it up the tunnel before he started steaming mad while likely plotting his revenge. A lot of people on Twitter were throwing around the idea of a suspension for this blindsided hit by Juju, a day after Gronk went full WWE and doled out the people’s elbow after a play was over, suspensions were hot on everyone’s mind. A suspension for this feels harsh, hits like that happen all the time with no suspension, especially for a first time offender. But in this specific game it just felt a bit more gruesome than usual.

A hit like this, even against a heated rival, even to one or the most universally hated players the League has ever seen, just hurts a little more on the same night Ryan Shazier was rushed to the hospital with no feeling in the lower half of his body. The hits themselves really don’t have anything to do with one another, not even remotely the same type of play, but at the same time it’s hard to separate them in a game as physical as this one was. I hope Burfict, by all accounts a piece of shit, is ok. I hope Shazier, by all accounts one of the nicest guys in the league, is ok.