As the NFL continues to investigate whether the Bengals took liberties with the injury report regarding quarterback Joe Burrow’s wrist injury, more information will emerge. Some will be made available to the public, and some won’t.
Here’s an interesting nugget that emerged on Monday. WJZ-TV in Baltimore has video of Burrow throwing before the Week 11 Thursday night game. In between throws, Burrow flexes his right hand and also looks at it.
It’s not dispositive, but it’s not the kind of thing someone normally does after throwing a football if the hand is generating no pain or discomfort. And it wasn’t cold that night. The temperature at kickoff was 56 degrees.
The biggest piece of evidence pointing to injury-report shenanigans comes from the fact that Burrow was wearing a sleeve on his arm while traveling. He claims it was for a condition completely different from the eventual wrist injury.
Still, the Bengals disclosed no conditions of any kind on the Week 11 injury report. That’s the problem.
The fact that the Bengals posted and then deleted video of Burrow in the wrist sleeve only makes things fishier.
Complicating the situation is the fact that the NFL has no incentive to catch the Bengals violating the terms of the poorly-enforced injury reporting policy. If/when a class-action lawsuit is filed against the Bengals for fraud, the NFL could easily be added as a defendant to the case under the argument that the league has negligently failed to enforce its own rules.