Everyone would have been a lot better off with Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict off the field for crunch time of his team's Saturday-night loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The fourth-year pro has been suspended for the first three games of the 2016 season after his vicious hit on Steelers wideout Antonio Brown near the end of Saturday's AFC wild card game. NFL vice president of football operations Merton Hanks, who handles personnel discipline for the league, ruled that Burfict's actions "placed his opponent at unnecessary risk of injury and should have been avoided."