The landscaper who wears his knees out and suffers as he gets older; should he go to every homeowner whose yard he did and demand compensation? No because he already received it.QUOTE]
That is not a good example. The landscaper is usually self employed. A better example would be a soldier who voluntarily joins the Army knowing the risks of combat. He has an injury (injuries) in the preformance of his duites and encounters lingering problems with that injury or injuries many years down the road for one of many reasons.
Generally speaking, both employee and employer are well aware of the risks and there are implicit obligations on the part of the employer to take care of the employee upon whom the employer benefited from his services. I would have thought there would have been a contractural obligation to provide this type of benefit. It mentions in the article that health benefits runout after 4 years, but it is very unclear about the obligations of workers' comp. The article also makes it sound as if the NFL and teams are deliberately obstructing these cases.
If this instance, is combined with the head trauma issues, I would think the NFL would come up with a program to address long term health issues related to playing football and let it quietly go away. The PR damage is costing them more than such a program would.