Dave Pear's Blog

When I played football for the University of Washington Huskies and then went into the NFL first through the Baltimore Colts, on to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and eventually with the Raiders, we all wore Riddell helmets. Little did I know that Riddell was an official paying sponsor of the NFL and was the supplier of choice for each of the teams for many years. This relationship made a lot of money for Riddell because kids playing Pee Wee, high school and college football were led to believe that Riddell was the best protection money could buy. And why not? All their heroes in the NFL were wearing them.
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Here’s one of my Topp Raiders cards with that older 70′s helmet – definitely not close to anything like the young players have today. (And the older guys from the 50′s and 60′s played with those leather “helmets”!) We were all coached to use our heads and helmets as part of our play and most of the older players still talk about stingers and having their bells rung several times in every game. And the League even went so far as to create their MTBI (MILD Traumatic Brain Injury) Committee headed for years by their own appointed Dr. No: Dr. Ira Casson who continued to spew their propaganda all the way up to Congress as recently as a couple of years ago.
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Our friend, George Visger, played for two years with the 49ers, ending his short career with a Super Bowl ring and 9 subsequent, life-changing brain surgeries that followed. And no disability or pension benefits because he only played for two years so he didn’t even meet the Disability Plan’s 4-year hurdle that all pre-93 players needed to qualify! Do you think his helmet was good protection?
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Bowing to heavy pressure in recent years, the League has been making changes to the rules to protect its players from the effects of concussions. They also fired Dr. No and replaced him with a real expert and advocate in the field: Dr. Rich Ellenbogen. But what about all those decades of denial while continuing to misinform its employees with fake studies? And they did that while also sending a false sense of security to school and college players making it all look and sound eerily like the long era when the tobacco industry was telling the public that cigarette smoking was harmless.
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And that is why Heidi and I decided to join a lawsuit that holds the League and Riddell responsible for hiding and perpetuating the long-term damages from concussions. The suit was officially filed this week and we’ve just uploaded a full copy to Scribd for easy viewing and to make it downloadable for printing. You can also click the Enlarge icon in the center of the menu at the bottom of the viewing screen to go Full Screen for easier reading (just hit the ESC key to close):
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Full Concussion and Helmet Lawsuit Filing Aug 3 2011
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NOTE: I’m not a lawyer and I am not here to solicit your business. But if you want more information, my contact person on this lawsuit is:
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Jason Luckasevic
Goldberg, Persky & White
e-mail: Jluckasevic@gpwlaw.com
1030 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(412) 338-9460 – direct
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Posted with the express consent of Evan Weiner:

THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
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NFL and NFLPA’s labor woes may not be over yet

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Tuesday, 02 August 2011
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
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The National Football League owners have a labor agreement with the present members of the reconstituted National Football League Players Association but it appears that the league still has problems with the players association’s stance on not helping out former players with their medical needs years after their last game in the league. The league apparently informed Carl Eller’s legal team on Friday that the-then decertified National Football League Players Association decided not to take a $500 million offer over ten-years to get retirees life football medical benefits and an uptick in pensions as part of the recently completed collective bargaining agreement.
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Posted with the express consent of Evan Weiner:

THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
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Covenant between fans and sports is a facade
Thursday, 12 May 2011
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
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NFL Smoke & Mirrors

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When it comes to dealing with its senior retired players, it seems that the NFL and the NFLPA have consistently been running on a strategy of doing too little too late. And that’s the only thing they seem to do consistently. First, concussions couldn’t possibly cause any long-term problems. Then, they decided they DO cause long-term damage (but only to active players!), so they fired Dr. No and quickly created all those new rules and fancy posters warning all the current players about the dangers of concussions. Those new rules came all the way down from the Commissioner’s office and – if followed to the letter – would completely change the game of football. Even a lot of the players have come forward to point out how ridiculous and confusing this has become – all in a short span of just a few weeks. Sheesh!

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Reprinted in its entirety with permission from Evan Weiner:

Discarded NFL players are often forgotten in retirement

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Hello Fellas,

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Fellas,

A number of months ago I told you all that Gene had actually stated to a group of his gangsters the following: ” We don’t have to worry about dividing those assholes because they have divided themselves.” Let’s not let him be proven right.

I also stated to all of you some months back that I was a “Bernie Parrish Man” all the way. That has not changed. Upshaw, the NFLPA and the NFL feared – and fears – Bernie more than it does any man alive. That’s a fact. The NFL even offered to negotiate directly with the retired players if someone could get Bernie to “go away.” Ha ha ha. Fat chance of that ever happening. No one can dispute the commitment that Bernie, Herb and Walt had before any of the rest of us even dreamed that we could really take these Gangsters…

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