The current leadership of the NFL Players Association hasn’t said much about the proposed settlement of the concussion litigation. The man who served as president of the union through the 2011 lockout doesn’t like it.
Former NFL center Kevin Mawae tells Terry McCormick of TitanInsider.com that Mawae believes the $765 million is “a small price to pay when the NFL is going to make $27 billion in profits over the next 15 to 20 years.”
The scheduled payout, with half of the money being paid in the three years after final approval of the settlement is obtained and the other half being paid over the next 17, makes the present value of the money considerably lower.
“$765 million,” Mawae said. “That’s what they’re willing to pay now not to have to go all the way to court. The biggest win for them is they don’t have to disclose anything, any of the information they they may have had since the late ’80s or early ’90s on concussions. . . .
“They may have had information back in 1994 that the players could have at least known all these years, but they paid to keep those that closed. That’s what it amounts to. There’s no disclosure anymore. There’s no disclosure of any information they may or may not have had. Information is power and when didn’t have to give that up [in court], you retain that power.”
He’s right, but the information could still be disclosed if a retired player with a real brain injury and the willingness to keep pushing the litigation overcomes a few litigation hurdles and forces the case to the discovery process. That’s the real question over the next several months — will players who don’t know what they’ll get via the proposed settlement choose to opt out of it and pursue something more?