In biting comments last week the executive director of the NFL Players Association, promised the union would attempt to dissuade potential free agents from signing with the Bears based on the team's support of a pending bill in the Illinois state legislature involving worker's compensation reform.

The Bears made it clear Friday they have no fears their free agency efforts will be impeded despite DeMaurice Smith's critical remarks.

Bears general counsel Cliff Stein explained the team's support for Senate Bill 12, a provision that ultimately could alter worker's comp benefits for pro athletes in Illinois. But Stein, whose experience includes eight years as a player agent and 14 years as the Bears' chief contract negotiator, dismissed Smith's warning as an exaggerated threat, confident that the legislation would have no impact on the Bears' free agency efforts next month.

"I can say right now, that not one time in my 22 years (of contract negotiating), on either side of the fence, has any player or agent ever looked (deeply) into 'What are the worker's comp laws in your state?'" Stein said. "Maybe once or twice I had an agent ask about the state income tax. But that was it."

Amid a bombardment of criticism from the players association, the Bears continue standing firmly behind their support for a state bill designed, in part, to reform worker's compensation regulations. During a conference call Friday to discuss details of Senate Bill 12, Stein defended his team's endorsement of it.

Within the proposed legislation, which still is awaiting a vote on the senate floor, is a rider that would eliminate the ability of professional athletes to collect wage-differential benefits until age 67. Those benefits instead would be capped for pro athletes at age 35 or five years after their injury occurred – whichever came later.

The proposed change, written into Senate Bill 12, has the formal endorsement of all five major Chicago sports franchises. The Bulls, Blackhawks, Cubs and White Sox all support the argument that a professional athlete should not expect his playing career to last until age 67 and therefore shouldn't be entitled to wage-differential benefits for that length of time.

"We do know this: no players play in their athletic career, in their usual and customary line of employment until they're age 67," Stein said. "And if they take another job after their athletic career is over in the state of Illinois, they will be entitled to wage-differential benefits if they are injured doing that job."

Earlier Friday, the NFLPA continued its public campaign to curb the bill, arguing again that the legislation, if passed, would reduce potential workman's compensation benefits severely for pro athletes in Illinois.

DeMaurice Smith Mark Tenally / AP

NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith before a game in New York on Jan. 1, 2017.

NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith before a game in New York on Jan. 1, 2017.

(Mark Tenally / AP)

"Let me put a fine point on it," said George Atallah, the NFLPA's assistant executive director of external affairs. "We want one of two outcomes: for the NFL to call the Chicago Bears and tell them to stop this; or for the state senator (Christine Radogno, R-Lemont) to pull this bill on behalf of the Bears and the other professional sports teams (in Chicago) who essentially wrote it for her."

This current proposed bill attracted significant attention last week after Smith proclaimed emphatically in a radio interview that he would steer free agents away from signing with the Bears because of the potential legislation. It was a grand and forceful statement that attempted to cast the Bears organization and the McCaskey family as greed-driven without proper concern for player care.

But Smith's proclamation failed to acknowledge how the proposed Illinois bill compared with current laws in other states. Thirty-seven states (which, collectively, include 19 NFL teams) don't offer any form of wage-differential benefits in workman's compensation cases. And of the 13 states that do, none offers such benefits to athletes until the age of 67 as Illinois currently does.

"This is an anomaly in the law. This is an anomaly that only exists (in Illinois)," Stein said. "… So why are we doing this? We're doing this because it's what is just, it's what's fair. And it's an attempt to get the wage-differential portion of the worker's comp laws in Illinois on somewhat of an equal playing field with the other states."

In a nutshell, wage-differential benefits entitle an employee to collect financial rewards after a career-ending or serious injury that "prevent them from pursuing their usual and customary line of employment." In Illinois, an injured employee is entitled to collect two-thirds of the difference between their pre-injury and post-injury wages.

At present, Illinois is one of only 13 states that even includes wage-differential benefits within its worker's compensation regulations.

Still, the NFLPA strongly opposes its players receiving different treatment from other employees in the state.

"I know the clubs think that it's no big deal," Atallah said. "And they have cited other states that have similar reductions or caps on athletes' ability to earn worker's comp. My question back to those clubs is why would you want to be part of that group? Why would you want to be lumped in with other organizations that have made a concerted effort to try to take away the rights of their players?"

NFLPA policy counsel, Joe Briggs, also criticized language in the bill that would allow professional sports teams to fully eliminate the wage-differential benefit to athletes by arguing that the expected tenure of that athlete's career would have ended before age 35.

Said Briggs: "The slippery slope that you start on while allowing an employer to define the expected tenure of a career, also could apply to other careers outside of professional sports. They could come for the professional athletes first. But the expected tenure of a police officer's career is a lot shorter than 67 years too. So the question is when will they go after their benefits under the same principles?"

Briggs said the NFLPA has been working closely with the players unions in the other major sports to oppose the bill.

"They've walked with us in lockstep," he said, "and are equally concerned about this potential change in the state law."

The deadline to declare for the draft has passed. The Senior Bowl is in the books. The NFL scouting combine is a scant three weeks away. Draft season is fully engaged and the many prospects are already well along the proverbial road to the podium.

Which players will get that invite to the 2017 NFL draft in Philadelphia? Plenty of those among my Top 50 will get that coveted invitation to Philadelphia, so let's take a look at my Big Board heading into the combine at the end of the month.

— John Harris, Special To The Washington Post

While the NFLPA has been emphatic with its opposition of Senate Bill 12, it has had difficulty demonstrating how far-reaching the bill's impact would be if passed.

The union declined Friday to specify an example in which a former player currently was receiving wage-differential benefits from a workman's compensation case. The NFLPA also asserted that, in a study of the last four years, they had identified 76 cases where a professional athlete filed for workman's compensation. Of those 76 cases, according to Briggs, only five involved NFL players subject to the current Illinois law.

All five cases, Briggs said, ended in settlements without needing to be fully adjudicated within the Illinois system.

Stein asserted that since 2005 the Bears themselves have settled an average of at least two worker's compensation claims per year that have included a wage-differential component. Stein asserted that the goal of all the major pro teams in Chicago is to close a worker's comp loophole to eliminate Illinois as an outlier in its wage-differential payments.

Stein also took exception to the NFLPA's ongoing assertion that the Bears and Chicago's other pro teams simply were looking to squash player benefits for the sake of savings.

"If you have a law on the books that creates an unjust windfall, then the right thing to do is correct that and get in line with every other state in the country," Stein said. "… If this was all about the money and getting the most savings for the club then we would try to move and support a bill that would carve out professional athletes from worker's comp (altogether). And we already have stated, as the other teams have also, that we will not support such a bill."

dwiederer@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @danwiederer

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