NFL facing monster class action suit

Lester Munson, ESPN’s in-house legal sportswriter (he’s an actual lawyer no less than a sportswriter), has a typically fine piece of work HERE. The NFL now faces the consolidation of more than 3,000 lawsuits by former players related to concussions. Among the claims is that the NFL falsified research on the issue to minimize the potential risks. There has been a rash of dramatic brain damage cases to former players in recent years, and I for one think it’s far from ridiculous to speculate that the very existence of the sport might be in trouble.

The recent Dave Duerson case was exemplary. The former Chicago Bears player was well-liked, a successful businessman, and in 2004 was even recruited by the Illinois Republican Party to run for the Senate against Barack Obama (though he declined to enter politics). Within a couple of years he was behaving erratically, abusing his wife, and failing miserably in areas where he used to succeed. Duerson committed suicide with a gunshot to the chest in hopes that his intact brain could be studied. Studies of his brain did indicate serious concussion-related injury.

But that wasn’t the first case. Former Pittsburgh great Mike Webster was demented, homeless, and living out of a truck before he finally died young.

Would you let your sons play the sport? My answer right now would probably be “no.”