Mike Mitchell is a violent loser who has no business playing in the NFL

Take a look at the play highlighted here where Mike Mitchell is seen clearly trying to injure Charcandrick West from Week 6.

The first thing you need to do is to watch the clip below. Until then, we can’t really talk about what we need to discuss: Mike Mitchell’s complete lack of class, sportsmanship, professionalism or even decency.

When you look at the clip, a couple things are clear. The play is over as Kansas City Chiefs running back Charcandrick West is down. Despite this, Pittsburgh Steelers defensive back Mike Mitchell decides he wants to keep West from being able to play football.

It’s unknown whether or not Charcandrick West slept with a member of Mitchell’s family. Perhaps West owes Mitchell some serious money from secret gambling debts. Or maybe there’s a whole other side to this, that they’re childhood friends and their secret handshake is an actual foot twist.

Until one such explanation can be made public, we can only assume one thing: Mitchell was trying to intentionally harm West. On a play that was already over, Mitchell decides to hurt West more than the game of football already harms its players. This is assault. This is a literal crime. And in a league where player safety is front and center as a major concern already just as a consequence of playing the game, this sort of behavior simply cannot be tolerated.

Mike Mitchell needs to be banned from the National Football League.

Need further proof? Alex Smith already came out this week and said that Mitchell’s dive that resulted in a roughing the passer call during the Steelers’ win was “about as flagrant as it gets.” Mitchell has been fined twice before for unnecessary roughness as well for hits on Tyler Eifert and Antonio Gates.

The reality is that the league needs to shut down this sort of behavior with a statement—one that shows there’s zero tolerance for this sort of thing. Given such an obvious exhibition of classless and destructive behavior, the onus is now on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to do something here, unless the Steelers want to handle the matter internally.

At the very least, Mitchell deserves a suspension of several games and even that feels like a slap on the wrist. Remember this wasn’t some random hit where he was already in motion and he hit a player helmet to helmet. This was a deliberate act with only one hopeful outcome: the maiming and injuring of another player.

Whether it’s Mike Tomlin, Roger Goodell or someone else in a position of power, there’s absolutely no reason Mike Mitchell should be allowed on the field this Sunday (or on any Sunday to come).