Marvin Lewis: Vontaze Burfict is future NFL starter

Burfict's head coach believes he has a future as an NFL starter. (US Presswire)

One byproduct of the sprained right knee suffered last week by Bengals linebacker Rey Maualuga -- he was one of three Cincinnati starters to get hurt in the first five minutes of the Jets preseason game -- is that the team now gets to watch one of the most-discussed undrafted free agent rookies practice with the No. 1 defensive group.

That would be Vontaze Burfict, who intercepted Tim Tebow during Cincinnati's win and has seen some work with the starting group now that Maualuga is out of the lineup for the time being.

“Oh, yeah. Unquestionably,” Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said when asked by ESPN.com if Burfict was a future NFL starter.

"He's done very well," Lewis said last week. "He's why he was a top high school recruit. He's got all of those abilities."

The problem, of course, was Burfict's final year in college.

He had a number of character issues entering the 2012 draft (including the report that he failed a drug test at Februrary's NFL combine and the fact that he blamed his coaches for his subpar performance at Arizona State last year), and though he was once considered a potential second-round pick, his stock fell so far that his name wasn't called at Radio City Music Hall.

In fact, people seemed so disappointed in Burdick that we openly discussed his Arena Football League options.

“You took a talented football player -- when he started college there, he was a highly recruited kid -- and he slowly regressed into this player that started to get cheap fouls and cheap penalties, and a player who had a horrible Combine workout," an AFC scouting coordinator told Sports Illustrated before the draft. "Not only the workout but the interview portion of the Combine. This is a guy who probably went from a second-round pick to no telling where he's going to fall."

In fact, in order to get a job, Burfict had to seek out coach Marvin Lewis and convince him that he would be a good free agent signing.

And now? Well, now Lewis thinks of him as a potential starter. Not a bad turnaround in only four months.

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