Should Aqib Talib be suspended for eye poke vs Colts?
Aqib Talib cost the Denver Broncos a chance at winning, but should the NFL suspend him
The Denver Broncos were trailing by a field goal late in their Week 9 matchup with the Indianapolis Colts. All they needed to do was pick up a big stop and keep the Colts limited to a field goal at most. That all went awry, though, as Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib gifted the Colts a first down after drawing a personal foul penalty after Talib came in and blatantly poked Dwayen Allen in the eye:
Aqib Talib goes straight for the eye pic.twitter.com/90FZAv0aLz
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) November 9, 2015
Despite the physicality inherent in the NFL, this isn’t WWE or any other brand of professional wrestling. That’s an incredibly dirty play on the part of Talib and one that undoubtedly warrants the penalty that the Broncos were assessed. Now the question that remains is whether or not Talib should be suspended for the eye-poke.
Normally, I would say that this type of on-field incident warrants a fine of some sort. It’s a guy in the heat of the moment getting a little too worked up and doing something incredibly stupid. He already cost his team the game, so just take some money out of his pocket for what he did and move on. However, that just feels inadequate in this situation.
I think Talib should serve probably a one-game suspension for that eye-poke. I’m not going to pretend like poking someone in the eye is the most despicable and dangerous thing that one person can do to another, but it’s still harmful and also incredibly disrespectful. But that’s not even the primary reason why the league should suspend Talib.
The heart of why he should be suspended is the fact that Talib wasn’t even in the initial scuffle. Allen and Von Miller were going at it and Talib came into the picture unprovoked and then delivered the poke to the eyes. It was a blatant physical escalation of a situation that didn’t initially involve him.
Talib shouldn’t be condemned forever from the NFL for this, but he should definitely be penalized at least somewhat heavy-handedly. A short suspension should do the trick.