It’s been a rough week for the Bengals medical staff.
One day after the team had to admit a very expensive mistake with Antonio Bryant, the agent for deposed linebacker Rashad Jeanty sharply criticized how the team handled his client this offseason.
Jeanty fractured his fibula in the playoffs last year, and the team initially told him he didn’t need surgery. When Jeanty visited Miami as a restricted free agent, the Dolphins told him he would need major surgery on his ankle to stabilize his leg, according to Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Dolphins lost interest, and Jeanty underwent the surgery shortly thereafter. On Monday, the Bengals waived Jeanty for failing a physical.
“It’s tremendously disappointing on the way this has been handled,” his agent David Canter told Reedy. “We don’t see how the Cincinnati Bengals can do this without any inclination that this was even a possibility.
“It’s a tad shocking how he was released and was done in a disheartening, callous and unfair manner. The only reason why he isn’t healthy and wasn’t able to pass the physical is because they failed to fully diagnose and mistreated the injury.”
Jeanty was regarded as a leader in the locker room and had won the team’s Ed Block Courage award in 2008. He was widely expected to be placed on the PUP list.
Perhaps the Bengals were trying to get back some of the money they wasted in the Bryant fiasco. Then again, there could be a lawsuit for medical malpractice in their future.
