NFL writer drags Joe Burrow into controversy involving Bengals
Cincinnati became the target of alleged news from the NFLPA.
The NFLPA dropped a bombshell of an announcement involving the Cincinnati Bengals right before free agency commences.
In a tweet from Saturday evening, the organization claims the Bengals are attempting to "strip all athletes in Ohio of their workers' compensation benefits."
Not exactly what you want to see right before the biggest week of the offseason. But, as always, there's context missing here.
The Bengals are not trying to devoid any athlete of their compensation benefits, rather they likely want to go private in handling that. Ohio state law requires all employers to provide workers compensation benefits, either through self-insurance or the state fund.
Instead of contributing to the state's fund and receiving benefits provided to them, Cincinnati could simply handle it themselves. Privatized insurance, if done correctly, would allow the same benefits for the players and potentially cost less than contributing to the state's fund.
The NFLPA doesn't want to frame it that way, apparently.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk suggests Joe Burrow should lead the charge in convincing the franchise to stop this plan.
If the union wants to get Bengals ownership to abandon the current proposal, there’s one person who can shut this down with a single text message. And it’s obvious who that player is that I don’t even have to type his name.
But again, why would Burrow do that if no one's health care is really going to be impacted?
There's no telling why the NFLPA sent out this memo right before free agency, or decided to throw an entire franchise under the bus with minimal context.
If the Bengals simply want more cost control of taking care of its players, this really is a non-issue.
