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Radio Free Montone: A Sad Day For The NFL

By John Montone, 1010 WINS

Good Squads used to break legs for mob bosses.  Now they play in the NFL.

Two teams lost playoff games last weekend in the final minute.  Minnesota did it the old fashioned way when kicker Blair Walsh missed a short field goal attempt in the final minute.  Well, like the wise man says, "Shanks happen."

The Cincinnati Bengals didn't so much lose their playoff game against Pittsburgh as much as they lost their minds.  With his right arm barely attached to his shoulder Steelers' Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw short, soft passes to march his team from the Bengals' 9-yard line to just past midfield.  But with time running out Big Ben's 20-yard toss to Antonio Brown floated high over the receiver's head.  The game appeared to be in the bag for the Bengals.

But as Brown fell back to earth after leaping for the ball Cincinnati linebacker Vontaze Burfict attempted to decapitate him.  Burfict, running full speed, blasted Brown in the head with his helmet.  The defenseless Brown crumpled to the turf where he lay motionless for several scary moments.  He was say as we say much too often these days, "concussed."

Burfict who was fined $70,000 for "unsportsmanlike conduct" during a regular season game was only minutes removed from a "talking-to" by his coach, Marvin Lewis, who told the volatile defender to keep his cool.  Burfict was hit with a 15-yard penalty.

As trainers tended to the badly injured Steeler, Bengals' defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones appeared in the middle of a scrum and went after a Steelers' coach.  Jones, a violent punk who was suspended by the NFL for more than a year for his off-the-field criminal behavior, also drew 15-yards.

Those 30 penalty yards turned what would have been an impossible 65-yard field goal attempt into a chip shot that gave Pittsburgh the victory.  After the game CBS color commentator Phil Simms correctly called it, "A sad day for the NFL."

And some of the fans acted as poorly as the players.  Police arrested six fans on assault charges including one tough fellow who smacked a woman in the face.

Maybe next year the league should move its games from stadiums to penitentiaries.

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