FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 29th, 2013

SPORTSDASH WITH YAHOO! SPORTS TRANSCRIPT AUG. 29, 2013 BREAKING NEWS – NFL REACHES $765 MILLION SETTLEMENT WITH FORMER PLAYERS IN CONCUSSION LAWSUIT

SportsDash with Yahoo! Sports co-hosts Dave Briggs and Carolyn Manno, NFL analyst Shaun King, former NFL player Bill Romanowski, and legal expert Dr. Jack Furlong discussed breaking news on Monday’s show regarding the NFL’s $765 million settlement with former players in their concussion lawsuit.

Bill Romanowski on the settlement-“Well, number one, the NFL basically is admitting they have a serious issue and they paid a lot of money to help these guys out. I never got involved in the concussion litigation because I personally told Roger Goodell, ‘If this was for programs that could help me later in my life if I was to come down with dementia, I would be all for it.’ But I’m not looking for a paycheck right now from the NFL for something that I knew was tough on my body and hard on my brain.”

Shaun King on choosing to not participate in the lawsuit- “I understood when I was approached to be a part of this lawsuit, I was like Bill Romanowski. As of right now, I have not experienced dementia or anything associated with concussions. That’s why I did not add myself to this lawsuit. I’m more interested in the long-term care of players than I am in getting a check from a lawsuit. I want to see how this $765 million is divided up as far as moving forward, and guys that may not be experiencing it now but may experience it later, and is the NFL willing to pay for that treatment and that care.”

King on the long-term care and legal options for players who did not participate in the lawsuit –  “I think that’s the greater concern for a majority of players. ‘Will there be a way for me to be taken care of?’ As a former professional athlete, it’s very expensive to get health insurance, especially the type of health insurance that would treat or diagnose dementia or some of these things that could be long-term issues.”

Jack Furlong on the settlement- “What the NFL was looking to do here in the settlement, I think, was to eliminate one count of the entire thing from further discovery, and that’s the fraud count. What did the NFL know about the science of concussions and when did they know it? When did they start saying to people, ‘We should start taking people off the field,’? Think big tobacco – if you remember the tobacco settlement, when did you know that cancer was an inevitable outcome of smoking cigarettes, and if you knew that 20 years before you let the rest of us know, you’ve got a problem. Now what they’re trying to do is sort out the claims through a mediation process. I guess my best analogy would be the Gulf Coast (oil spill) or 9/11, where you get a big-time mediator who comes in and says ‘Let’s see if we can differentiate these people based on the seriousness of the injuries, the number of years they played in the NFL, and the kinds of claims that can be overcome by any routine analysis – ‘Oh, you were a punter and you never actually made contact that we can see on videotape for 10 years’ – It’s kind of hard to justify you getting a recovery as opposed to a down lineman who’s getting hit in the head every 15 seconds.”

–NBC SPORTS GROUP–