Union prez slams NFL over congressional report

10:01 AM ET

CINCINNATI — NFL Players Association president and Bengals offensive tackle Eric Winston slammed the NFL this week, charging that allegations in a recent congressional report on the way the NFL improperly handled its recent concussion study was “a symptom” and “microcosm” of the way the league treated its players.

The congressional report, which was released Monday and highlighted in an ESPN Outside the Lines report the same day, concluded that at least a half-dozen top NFL health officials waged an improper, behind-the-scenes campaign last year to influence a major U.S. government research study on football and brain disease. The 91-page report highlighted ways the NFL pressured the National Institutes of Health to take the $16 million project from a prominent Boston University researcher, and instead redirect the money to members of the league’s committee on brain injuries. The study was to have been funded by a $30 million “unrestricted gift” the NFL gave the NIH in 2012.

According to Winston, such actions by the NFL are par for the course.

“The way they treated NIH is a symptom and is just a microcosm of really the way they treat players throughout the league, right?” Winston said Tuesday. “Every player needs to know because it’s every player that’s going to be affected by a study like this. It’s every player that’s going to be affected by personal conduct. It’s every player that’s affected by these things. So it’s not just about my vendetta or it’s not just about me. … It’s about educating the players and letting them know, ‘Listen, this affects you.'”

Winston’s comments came a day after he tweeted a link to the OTL story, and then also tweeted …

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