my friend wants to know
there are other jobs where you can have head injuries
Very, very briefly, the argument is that the NFL assumed the duty to protect players by it’s own actions. By setting standards of care, equipment rules, and monitoring of health, the NFL assumed a duty to care for the players. The other argument is that the NFL must comply with the Collective Bargaining Agreements it’s signed throughout the history of the NFL and those include statements about the duty of care.
And in other jobs, the employer is required to look after the employees’ health and safety and inform them of the risks involved in health problems that are typical of that job. The question is, why should the NFL be any different?
Not to mention that in most other jobs where you might sustain head injuries, the injuries are the result of something going wrong. In the NFL, it’s not workplace accidents that are resulting in injuries, but the ordinary duties of the job.
You’ll never see one of those XX DAYS SINCE THE LAST LOST TIME INJURY ON THIS JOB SITE signs in an NFL stadium.
I hope this isn’t off topic, but is the issue whether the NFL didn’t inform players or that the NFL actively hid information? If the former, they couldn’t very well inform people of something they didn’t have a very good understanding of themselves. If the latter, there must be some proof that information was hidden, right?
The NFL is afraid of getting sued by retired players who develop health problems, so they make a big show about protecting player safety. So in 15 years no player will be able to point to recent concussion studies in court and accuse the NFL of negligence for not educating the players appropriately about the risks of playing professional football.
In reality the NFL doesn’t give an actual shit about player safety, as evidenced by the referee lockout (over peanuts) and grueling scheduling for some teams (the Ravens playing 4 games in 17 days.)
Both. As in most lawsuits, the players have made many allegations, basically throwing everything in there that they can. They allege fraud, negligent misrepresentation, negligence, and fraudulent concealment (and a few more things). Pretty much anything they can think of.
The allegations include both that the NFL knew about the long term injuries from medical literature and that they should have known or done more to discover it. They refer to studies of boxer’s long term brain injuries, as well as studies of concussions in football players.
They are also alleging that the NFL misrepresented information. In 1994, Commissioner Tagliabue established a committee to study brain injuries/concussions in NFL players. The ex players allege that the that committee was incompetent, deceitful, and biased and that it hid information, ignored outside studies, and misrepresented what the science was saying about concussions.
If you really are interested, you can find the master complaint here (warning .pdf)
It’s going to be a long time until these issues are resolved and right now we don’t have a whole lot of information going on.
Of course they are concerned about not getting sued. So is every company in the world.
Baloney. They do give a shit, as evinced by the rules changes of the last few years. I don’t think the fact that they haven’t done everything possible to protect every player, or, hell just stop doing it, is very good evidence that they don’t care.
And it’s not the NFL that is out there knocking a chunk out of Matt Schaub’s ear, blindsiding a CB with a helmet to helmet hit, or drawing personal fouls. If the players wanted to be safer, they could stop with the illegal hits too.
And their proposal to increase the number of games to 18 from 16. I’m not sure the league doesn’t give a shit at all, but its interest in player safety is new and somewhat late to the game and it’s counteracted by a very powerful profit motive.
With a ‘1’ painted on it permanently, that actually would be funny in a gallow humor kinda way.