Seven retired players have filed a lawsuit claiming that NFL officials conspired to hide evidence linking concussions to dementia and brain disease. The newest lawsuit was filed in Philadelphia and is the latest of at least 8 similar lawsuits filed in New York, New Jersey, Georgia and Florida.
The players include former Eagle Ron Solt, who is suffering from substantial memory loss, and Rich Miano, an assistant coach at the University of Hawaii.
Super Bowl champ Jim McMahon and more than 100 other players are parties to the various cases, and cite a variety of symptoms ranging from memory problems to depression and other conditions.
“Rather than warn players that they risked permanent brain injury if they returned to play too soon after sustaining a concussion, the NFL actively deceived players, by misrepresenting to them that concussions did not present serious, life-altering risks,” charges the suit filed Wednesday, the third filed in Philadelphia.
“The NFL has long made player safety a priority and continues to take steps to protect players and to advance the science and medical understanding of the management and treatment of concussions,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Thursday in a statement. “The NFL has never misled players with respect to the risks associated with playing football.”
With the incidents that have occurred just this season, ranging from Kris Dielman’s missed concussion which led to a seizure on his flight back from New York to San Diego, to Colt McCoy being returned to a game after only missing a couple of plays without being tested for a concussion, which he had, the NFL is still not doing enough to effectively identify and treat concussions.
Some efforts have been made this season to improve procedures, including adding monitors in the booth to look for players that appeared to suffer a concussion, but the monitor system was in place for the Cleveland game where McCoy was sent back in, so clearly more needs to be done on the concussion issue.
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