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“NFL-Bad Look-or-Business as Usual”

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I cannot get the phrase out of my mind. It has resurfaced again.

“Delay-Deny-Hope you Die”.

Those were the comments of angry NFL players and their families, in the midst of the potential Concussion Lawsuit, that was supposed to be finalized 3-years ago, after a fight that took 5-years time.

I thought of that phrase with the latest revelations out of Washington and New York, that lawyers are going back to court on behalf of ailing and dying players.

Some of them want to know why payments, already promised to 1100 players continued to be delayed in the red-tape of administrators, supposedly handling the scheduling of money to go to families of players. The ones dying of head trauma, dementia, ALS and other assorted diseases, the aftermath of concussions.

Lawyers want to know where is the guaranteed money, 4-to-5M each, supposedly to be paid to the estates, the wives, the children, of documented former players, who committed suicide from CTE, or died of dementia and Alzheimers?

And now another group of lawyers want to know what the judge in the case is going to do, to help players being preyed upon by lawyers or firms, willing to advance them money upfront, but charging them exorbitant interest rates, to be collected, once their concussion payments arrive?

And now the report that a couple of firms hired former Giants-Eagles quarterback Joe Pisarcik, to be the contact man for some of these firms, to deliver players with acute problems, to them, for advance payments, with high interest rates attached to them.

Reports say the ex-NFL QB, who was a strong union member, was given $200,000-advance money himself to make all the contacts, then awarded $75,000-bonuses for the number of players he actually signed up for representation.

Sitting at home in San Diego, are former Chargers players, ailing. The same in every NFL city across the country. Players confined to wheelchairs…in rehab….in care centers…in hospice.

Players who are destitute, living on small pensions from the NFL, and social security.

Families still grieving over their husbands and fathers and brothers, who killed themselves rather than face the trauma of life after football with brain damage.

Does the NFL have a responsibility to follow thru on the administration of the concussion settlement, that guarantees 865M in payments?

Can the NFL be trusted to take care of its own, the players on whom the league built its success from the 1950’s to now considering how this league operated in the past?

Does there need to be an independent firm established to run the concussion program, from protocol to execution, from diagnosis to distribution of funds?

Where is the NFL Union representing the fallen soldiers of the game they represent?

I just cannot get past history out of my mind, when I think of those ailing, the struggles to get taken care of, and what the NFL was all about, back in the day, not so long ago.

As retired players said, and you hope the philosophy does not still exist.

“Delay-Deny-Hope you Die”.

This is a bad look for the NFL. Hoping it is not business as usual.

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