The way I read that statement, is that the ex-players are trying to minimize and/or discredit the NFL's show of force against the Saints, since the NFL has taken the "I am SHOCKED!" stance on the entire Saints situation, trying to portray the Saints as rogues in the league, rather than standard fare since the beginning of football.

If you really think about it, there may be some meat to the ex-players arguments. I will explain why, using concussions as example, which seems to be the hot button issue in these lawsuits:

There is no doubt that football is a violent sport. If you look at the warning sticker on the helmets the players wear, it says:

WARNING: NO HELMET CAN PREVENT SERIOUS HEAD OR NECK INJURIES A PLAYER MAY RECEIVE WHILE PARTICIPATING IN FOOTBALL. Do not use this helmet to butt, ram or spear an opposing player. This is in violation of the football rules and such use can result in severe head or neck injuries, paralysis or death to you and possible injury to your opponent. Contact in football may result in CONCUSSION-BRAIN INJURY which no helmet can prevent. Symptoms include: loss of consciousness or memory, dizziness, headache, nausea or confusion. If you have symptoms, immediately stop playing and report them to your coach, trainer and parents. Do not return to a game or practice until all symptoms are gone and you have received medical clearance. Ignoring this warning may lead to another and more serious or fatal brain injury.

This label tells you what could happen to your brain and neck while playing the game. However, it tells you nothing of the effects that concussions can have on a player many years after they stopped playing the game.

Now, as a reasonable person, I'd think that playing such a violent sport for a long period of time is going to have an effect on my body later on in life. HOWEVER, I am not a doctor.

If I want to know what effects concussions could have later in life and the dangers of cumulative concussions, or at least be better educated on the subject, I'd go to the doctor and ask him/her.

If I go to the doctor and ask him/her specifically about concussions and effects later on in life well after my football playing days are over, and the doctor specifically tells me "no known issues later on in life, no known issues on incurring cumulative concussions later on in life" when the doctor knows based on scientific research there is indeed a possibility of severe or even mild issues later on in life, then any reasonable person will agree that doctor was negligent, and therefore, liable.

I don't have all the facts in front of me, obviously, but for what I gather, that is what the ex-players are arguing in regards to concussions they were told by NFL doctors regarding concussions.

You can draw a parallel with the tobacco industry. It wasn't that the product was harmful and no one knew about it, it was that the tobacco industry knew their product was harmful but told no one.

How do you know, or even prove that the doctors employed by the NFL had known of the lasting effects of head injuries and withheld that information to the coaches and players?

If you repeatedly twist your ankle, it will have increasingly less functionality, eventually becoming a functional liability.

Any body part will have the same problem.

How stupid do you have to be to believe that the brain is exempt from the laws of biology?

Willfully stupid.

BTW, if one gets a concussion from a hit to the head, is the NFL responsible (and therefore liable) for telling the players they can get a concussion from a hit to the head? Is the helmet a clue?

I wish the judges would throw this out.

Whether it is true the NFL had information about concussions and either deliberately withheld it from players or even went as far as misguide them, that will be a court's task to decide. But if indeed medical professionals employed by the NFL did this, then the NFL is liable.

BTW, if one gets a concussion from a hit to the head, is the NFL responsible (and therefore liable) for telling the players they can get a concussion from a hit to the head? Is the helmet a clue?

Oh man, Tobias, if you haven't already, you should read up about Elliot Pellman, the quack doctor who worked for the NFL for YEARS, and actually said that players with concussions should get right back in the game (which you may remember, was a rule that has only been changed recently, SINCE THE LAWSUITS CAME UP). It is all very similar to big tobacco in a lot of ways.

But this guy Pellman was like something out of Hunter S. Thompson or a John Candy movie. He went to medical school at the Universidad de Guadalajara in Mejico. (Not exactly an ivory tower of modern medicine.) He did the minimum amount of the easiest residency that was required to become a US doctor, and he was hired by the Jets in 1988, was medical director of the Islanders and some arena football teams. The NFL named him medical liaison to the commissioner in 2001. He did this study full of COOKED UP, BOGUS DATA that showed that concussions weren't a problem. This was the league's official stance for most of the 2000's

If anyone wants to learn a little more about the past history of the NFL and concussions, the background of the suit, here's a quick start:

NFL Gets Brained By Its Own Study

"Doctor Yes"
Elliot Pellman says it's okay to play in the NFL after suffering a concussion - ESPN The Magazine

NFL Concussion Committee Breaks With Its Predecessor:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/sp...oncussion.html