We’ll start this item by pointing out one very important reality as to any reporting from NFL Media regarding the investigation into whether the Bengals hid a wrist injury to quarterback Joe Burrow before the condition became specifically aggravated and exacerbated in a Week 11 game at Baltimore.
The NFL has every incentive to find that the Bengals did not violate the rules. If the Bengals get sued for fraudulently concealing the injury (to the detriment of any gamblers who bet on the Bengals in reliance on the representation that he was healthy), the NFL quite possibly gets a ticket to the litigation party, too, under the argument that the league has negligently failed to enforce its own rules.
Even if the NFL wouldn’t be sued directly, it’s not in the league’s interests to have any team sued for something like that.
Against that very important backdrop, NFL Media has buried at the bottom of an item regarding Burrow’s looming wrist surgery some information about the investigation regarding Burrow’s injury. It creates, to no surprise, the impression that the Bengals did nothing wrong.
“Sources familiar with the organization say the Bengals have turned in hours of footage to the NFL showing that Burrow was healthy prior to the game,” writes Ian Rapoport of NFL.com in an item posted Sunday morning. “According to those who have seen the footage, Burrow threw the ball normally during practice, without a brace and took all of his normal reps. It also includes documentation from medical personnel stating Burrow’s injury was ‘acute,’ as [coach Zac] Taylor has explained. It was not, the doctors say, an injury that happened over time, sources say.”
The article also says this: “Based on information turned over by the Bengals, Burrow received no treatment before practice and missed no time in preparation for the game against the Ravens, sources say.”
It would be easy to parse that language (e.g., what about treatment after practice?), but the Bengals will have an answer for any question that could be asked. If there’s a smoking gun, the Bengals have no reason to produce it, and the NFL has no reason to search for it.
Yes, the Bengals will have an answer to any question regarding the Burrow injury. Except one, of course.
Why did the Bengals delete the video of Burrow arriving in Baltimore with visible evidence of some sort of device extending past his wrist?
It was just a compression sleeve, they say, with no connection to any specific ailment. Fine. Great. Good.
Why delete the video?
Also, why was it a compression sleeve that went all the way to the thumb? Compression sleeves don’t need to be anchored like dinghies. They’re tight by nature. If the sleeve is intended to control swelling due to pre-existing bumps and bruises (as Burrow said the day after the injury) and it’s the kind of sleeve that extends through and past the wrist, common sense suggests that perhaps the area with the potential swelling was, you know, the wrist.
So it was all either one crazy coincidence (including the fact that the Bengals deleted video of something that was entirely innocuous and meaningless) or the Bengals hid the injury and now the Bengals and the league are doing exactly what they would do to cover their tracks in order to avoid having the shit hit the fan.
That’s why, frankly, the only way the truth (whatever it might be) will ever come out in a situation like this is to have someone hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit, and allow the discovery process to get to the bottom of what actually happened. While there’s a real chance the end result would be that there was no concealment of any injury, that’s the only way to come up with an answer that would be accepted as reliable and credible — and not predictable or self-serving.