NS.. ex-NFL players sue league... It's starting to make sense now

Money is the driving factor. No, the NFL didn't do enough to protect players and, yes, they developed a culture that forced injured players to go in at the risk of turning a lesser injury that could heal into a dibilitating injury leaving residual effects on their future quality of life. Until now there was not enough financial pressure on the NFL to force the issue. The sports industry is the new target defendant for an army of voracious attorneys and the game is changing. The NFL has no choice but to react to the pressure. People here complain about the new "pansy" rules, but the NFL knows that, if they don't change dramatically, the professional game will not survive. It's one thing to be able to plead ignorance to the harm they were doing because the medical evidence had not yet been developed to support it. (Remember the "smoking gun" evidence in tobacco litigation showing management was aware of and ignored warnings from their own research departments that smoking kills people? I wonder if there are similar documents that would bury the NFL in court.) If the NFL continued their old ways fully aware of the current medical evidence against them, massive punitive damage awards - uninsurable in most states - along with their already huge exposure to compensatory damages, (past, present, future medical care, pain and suffering, lost income, etc.), would wipe them out.

This is no different than the path of industry in general in the United States. A century ago, there was no worker's compensation system and employees could sue their employers for negligence (EDIT: though few did). Profit was the goal and people - including kids - worked long hours in dangerous and unhealthy environments. As the cost of lawsuits rose and the labor movement gained ground, there was enough pressure to force companies to accept worker's compensation plans. The trade-off was that employees under the system relinquished their right to sue their employer. Unsafe work places were still the norm until OSHA got its wings and class action law suits became popular. When the big judgements hit - black lung disease, asbestosis, etc., the insurance industry added heavy pressure from their side for companies to operate more safely - and they cleaned up their acts. In the eighties medical malpractice insurers took a big hit and forced doctors to practice defensive medicine. In the nineties, pharmaceutical and transportation industries went through the same thing as lawyers geared up and went after them. It's the NFL's turn in the barrel.

The game has and is changing. Past players with good cases will be compensated through the judicial system, but what good is money when it takes twenty minutes to put your pants on in the morning or you are left with mush for a brain?