Dave Pear's Blog

On November 23, 2009, in San Francisco, California, Federal District Court Judge William Alsup rendered a blistering set of three orders approving the settlement agreement in Parrish & Adderley vs. NFLPA Players Inc. However, in rendering the orders, Judge Alsup said of the award of attorneys’ fees, “When combined with the expense reimbursement below, counsel is receiving approximately 25 percent of the value of the settlement. This figure adequately compensates counsel for the work performed in this action. A reasonable fee in light of the ultimate recovery obtained for the class, and is reasonable in light of the missed opportunity for an even higher recovery.”

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The NFL doesn’t seem to care about their active players and they despise the retired players! All they offer is lip service to serious, life-changing head injuries. Unless a player is carried off the field on national TV, it’s almost impossible for a retired player to access his earned disability benefits. And his Union is nowhere to be seen when it comes to representing him. The NFL disability system has been illegal and it violates ERISA Law as well as their own plan document!

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More momentum on the concussion front as the brain injury story continues to makes its way upstream into the mainstream media. This seems to be one story that’s becoming harder and harder for the NFL to suppress or spin – Thank you, Doctor No!

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Dr. NO!

THIS JUST IN: The NFL’s Dr. No – Dr. Ira Casson – has just resigned along with his co-chair from their MTBI Committee. Following the release of a leaked memo sent out to all the teams, NFL Commissioner made his usual non-statement about making “progress.”

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Dave Zirin from the The Nation has written a powerful piece which really summarizes the Catch-22 that the NFL faces with regard to brain concussions. We’ve been discussing Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference around the office cooler for a while now.

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Here’s the headline from USA Today:

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So producing a film about life after football for many of the old warriors should speak volumes. The documentary Blood Equity has been out since 2007 and is available on DVD. We haven’t heard much more about it since it came out but noticed it was playing this weekend Laemmle Sunset 5 theater in West Hollywood (read the story HERE).

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It's Official!

Well, it’s finally official!

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Dr. NO!

Lead story for Friday morning: NFLPA Executive Director DeMaruice Smith calls for ouster of Dr. No. – Ira Casson. New York Times‘ Alan Schwarz writes:

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“When someone is running a con on you, you won’t be able to stop them until you understand how their con works.”

- Bob Grant

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We were hoping that the staggering traffic jam from George Martin’s new NEW NFL Alumni Association’s Recruiting Dinner on Saturday night would have generated loads of press coverage on Monday (our earlier post on the event click HERE). But so far, nothing in the New York Times, the New York Post or CNN or FOX. And there’s absolutely nothing on the Alumni’s own site at all. In fact, when you go to their new NEW website – NFLAlumniAssociation.com, based on George Martin’s new NEW e-mail address – it still isn’t even up yet. (Click on screen shots to enlarge.)

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George Visger

Fellow independent retired 49′er, George Visger, recently sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith. He was kind enough to share his letter with all of us. George has managed to continue his ongoing battle with the NFL and the NFLPA for recognition and fair treatment of all retired football players despite his personal struggles from football-related brain damage and the subsequent brain surgeries he’s had to endure over the past 20+ years. George’s case is another perfect example of how the NFL stacks the deck against the players when it comes to disability and pensions after football. They know the average career is 3 years or less so they set the standard for qualification at 4+ years. Even at WalMart, an employee qualifies for FULL benefits after a 90-day probationary period. And you can be damn sure if you hurt yourself on the job on your second day of work, you’d be qualified for Workers Compensation benefits with little objection. Only in one of the most lucrative and physical professional sports do they set the standard so impossibly high for its employees. When will we actually see our Union step up for its retired players?

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One of our local Seattle TV stations – KOMO – has a great weekly series called Eric’s Little Heroes. Award-winning sportscaster Eric Johnson manages to find some of the cutest stories in local kids’ sports and puts together some great clips for his viewers every week. But considering the escalating focus on concussions and brain injuries, does a story about hard hits in Peewee football make for a cute story or a wake up call about what we’re teaching our kids from an early age? You can feel some of those hard helmet hits just watching this clip. OUCH!
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So how can you tell if your little kid actually sustains a concussion? Do they have doctors available? Maybe he’s just acting goofy or a little bit off this morning after his Peewee game yesterday? Or maybe…

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We’ve been informed that invitations have been sent out to members of the NFL Alumni for Gene – er, George – Martin’s coming-out party for The new, NEW NFL Alumni Association. Apparently, advance RSVP’s had to be called in by Nov. 11th for the first 180 people attending as they’re expecting an overflow attendance and parking is limited at Giants’ Stadium (?!!) to the first 180 to sign up. We thought the stadium could handle 78,000+ fans… Click on the brochure pages below to enlarge for reading (our highlights added).

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Would you trust your brain or your money with this man?

We have no idea how anyone missed this little tidbit from the Congressional hearings on brain concussions in the NFL. The media rightfully focused on stirring comments made by former Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ owner Gay Culverhouse regarding the complete lack of advocacy for the players when it comes to brain injuries: The team doctors are hired by the owners and are employed to protect their investment; many of the coaches and owners often play golf with the team doctors in their free time. Tampa Bay Online covered Ms. Culverhouse’s testimony closely and the last paragraph in their story says a lot about just how seriously Roger Goodell plans on looking into brain concussions.

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