Ex-Players Prep For Battle Over Concussions

The players’ lawyers accuse the NFL of promoting violence in the game and concealing known cognitive risks from concussions and other blows to the head.

“The NFL failed to live up to its responsibility: it negligently heightened players’ exposure to repeated head trauma and fraudulently concealed the chronic brain injuries that resulted,” the players’ lawyers wrote in their latest brief, filed in January.

If Brody sides with the players, she would then rule on some broader issues, which are expected to include hard-fought battles over the science of concussions and brain injuries, along with the players’ claims of fraud and negligence.

The NFL, eager to avoid discovery, has argued that those players were bound by previous contracts or contracts in effect when they later collected pensions.

Similarly, the league had no union contracts in place before 1968, but Anderson and others question whether those players have much of a case, since most of the scientific findings linking concussions to possible brain injuries emerged in the 1990s and later.

The study found 68 had evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease also found in Seau’s brain after the popular player shot himself in May.

“This success comes at a price to the players who make the game great,” Seau’s parents said in their lawsuit, which was consolidated with the other Brody cases last month.