Bengals approval poll: Vontaze Burfict gets 3-year contract extension

On Thursday, the Cincinnati Bengals signed Vontaze Burfict to a three-year contract extension. It’s reportedly worth more than $38 million.

Because Burfict had another year left on his contract, that means his new money may get spread out over the next four seasons, so he may not be getting $38 million from 2018-2020. Some of that money is probably going to him this season.

“Vontaze is still one of the young, emerging talents within the league,” said head coach Marvin Lewis following news of the extension. “We have worked hard at training, developing and retaining talented players. It’s pleasing that Vontaze has made this commitment to be a part of the organization going forward. It was important to reach an extension before the start of the season and we look forward to having Vontaze back with the team in a few weeks.”

Burfict was about to play out the final year of a four-year, $20 million extension signed in 2014. He was going to get paid a little more than $4 million this year before the extension, according to Over The Cap. The Bengals also have more than $15 million in cap space, so I’d bet that $3-5 million of it will go to Burfict this year.

Regardless, this is still a mammoth deal for a player who’s had as many issues as Burfict. He was suspended for Weeks 1-3 of the 2016 NFL season due to repeated violations of the NFL’s safety rules. He’s also been fined numerous times due to his on-field actions and breaking the NFL’s safety rules, which have led to him being suspended to start the 2017 season.

Because Burfict is a repeat offender, his latest suspension was increased from the first suspension, up to five games. After appealing the ruling, Burfict got it reduced to just three games.

Even so, Burfict has not played in Week 1 of an NFL season since 2014. In 2015, he was injured while recovering from microfracture surgery. Now he’ll have back-to-back three game suspensions to start the 2016-17 seasons.

Burfict is still one of the game’s best linebackers when healthy. That’s why he deserved to be paid handsomely with his next deal.

Still, was re-signing Burfict the right move? Was it too much money? Let us know in our approval poll and in the comments section.