Marino's Lawsuit: What It Mean to You

[greybeard]

On May 30, was among 14 named plaintiffs in a lawsuit filled against the NFL. The lawsuit sought damages for cognitive issues that had and could arise due to having played in the NFL while the NFL had withheld from players scientific evidence of the dangers posed by playing. The complaint did not specify that there Dan Marino had shown indications of cognitive deficit; it didn't say he didn't. Three days later Marino asked out and was dropped from the lawsuit at his request. The reasons offered:

"Within the last year I authorized a claim to be filed on my behalf just in case I needed future medical coverage to protect me and my family in the event I later suffered from the effects of head trauma. In so doing I did not realize I would be automatically listed as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the NFL. I have made the decision it is not necessary for me to be part of any claims or this lawsuit and therefore I am withdrawing as a plaintiff effective immediately. I am sympathetic to other players who are seeking relief who may have suffered head injuries. I also disclaim any references in the form complaint of current head injuries."

It just so happens that in 2013 Marino was let go by CBS as an analyst on its pregame show. He has continued his career as an analyst for other outlets. Did Marino disclose to CBS either indications of early onset of cognitive issues or his intent to join this lawsuit, were warning shots fired by current employers, did concerns about losing his current gigs cause the withdrawal. We'll probably never know.

The problem is that Marino's lawsuit has resurrected the issue of cognitive issues that the original class act lawsuit brought to the fore back to the front page. With it, the deeper societal problems of cognitive deficit onset symptoms that many present that can portend the devastation that cognitive deceases in the dementia penumbra present are likewise elevated in the public eye. Here's where Marino's issues become our own. The prevalent practice among many large employers is to push senior employees out the door in favor of replacing them with a youngster or two who work for next to nothing, often as employees of manpower companies, and thus for whom the employers bear no responsibility under the employment laws. Such practices are unlawful but proving age discrimination is a difficult and costly business and few undertake it.

Here's the rub. The people getting pushed out, those in their mid 50s and older, normally present inconsequential loss of cognitive capacity, forgetting their keys more often then not. The process of pushing gives rise to stress that in adults of any age will lead to diminished performance, and cognitive deficiency. The senior population that well can push them into the nebulous zone diagnosable as "early onset cognitive loss," a gray area that often reverses with "better living." The law forbid firing people with disabilities if a reasonable accommodation can be made. The people who can be diagnosed with "early onset" fall into that category and often can perform the meat of their jobs with minor secretarial-type assistance, there used to be secretaries by the way. So, the methods for pushing senior employees out the door create conditions that can lead to diagnoses that prevent the results, the specter of being fired that the employer was after. In fact, the employer is then required by law to incur further costs, albeit minimal, to make the accommodations now required of it.

The consequence, who knows. But, if you start pushing earlier before losing keys starts you avoid the accommodation issues, you get what you are after, getting more for less, the American way. Getting old "ain't what it used to be;" it must start younger and the problems won't be health related.

What to do about it. Marino might have helped.

Sports are interwoven with who we are as a country. For many of us, we can't live without them. Here we are, we applaud our stars like Dan Marino for the good works they do for the unfortunate, yet by and large as a society we are ambivalent about what needs to be done to protect them, about the lawsuits that have been and continue to be brought because of the actions of the NFL. Think about it, brains are pretty important, we all have them, and it's not just the working lives of football players that we need to be concerned about.

[Atlanta Duke]

I think the NFL coverup of the relationship of concussions and CTE is abhorrent, but Marino and Shannon Sharpe were fired for by CBS low ratings

CBS has long been rumored to be pursuing alterations for The NFL Today. Their ratings have consistently been beaten by Fox NFL Sunday and the program has been in need of some fresh blood for a long time.

http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/tony-gonzalez-in-dan-marino-and-shannon-sharpe-out-at-the-nfl-today.html

I bet they could care less if Marino had early signs of cognitive impairment, which Marino denies having, as long as he made money for them. Terry Bradshaw contends he has such impairment and is still cashing checks for Fox.

If the ratings were good CBS would have no problem having Charles Manson on its pregame show with JB, Boomer and the Coach.

[greybeard]

I think the NFL coverup of the relationship of concussions and CTE is abhorrent, but Marino and Shannon Sharpe were fired for by CBS low ratings

CBS has long been rumored to be pursuing alterations for The NFL Today. Their ratings have consistently been beaten by Fox NFL Sunday and the program has been in need of some fresh blood for a long time.

http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/tony-gonzalez-in-dan-marino-and-shannon-sharpe-out-at-the-nfl-today.html

I bet they could care less if Marino had early signs of cognitive impairment, which Marino denies having, as long as he made money for them. Terry Bradshaw contends he has such impairment and is still cashing checks for Fox.

If the ratings were good CBS would have no problem having Charles Manson on its pregame show with JB, Boomer and the Coach.

Clever, funny, factual, and good to know. You do get why thread I trust. This is really good.

[greybeard]

Many of my posts through the years have focused on the issue of injury in sport, and the often related union-management battles that have been waged concerning them, the latter falling within what was the area of my professional expertise. When economic warfare in the form of lockouts or strikes occur in professional sports the perspective of many is to side with management because they understand, wrongly I believe, that private sector unions have lost all employee support because the unions had won benefits in the past that were unsustainable. That perspective cannot stand as justification for the lack of public outcry against the NFL's continued fight that seems to know no bounds against taking financial responsibility for the dreadful consequences that have befallen so many former players and threaten so many others, including those who play the game currently and in the foreseeable future.

The issue that what I will call the Marino lawsuit brought to the fore with star power behind it is the long term and often devastating impact that participation can have that will remain asymptomatic for years. That lawsuit, with the star power attached to it might have at least brought the issue of what I regard as the NFL's opprobrious conduct back to the front pages and kept it there, at least for a while. Three days later, when a court rolled it into the class action lawsuit that has been settled but for the judge's approval make's Marino's association with the lawsuit moot. Marino's withdrawal at that point did nothing but make clear that, if he once thought otherwise, he was done with advocating for an issue that drove him to file suit in the first place. Who can blame him. The NFL brought the class-action plaintiffs to their knees, and what forum would even a person of his stature have for speaking out on an issue that is toxic to the media. It seems that the only way the NFL's nose will get bloodied, failing disclosures even more outrageous than those of recent weeks, is if Marino or someone like him gets hit with what has befallen so many others. That prospect obviously does not concern the NFL because it knows where the media and the public stand and why, and, after all, the guys assume the risk. Perhaps, maybe, someone of truly enormous stature will step up and things will change. "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, . . . ."

[Atlanta Duke]

Great points

Agreed that it becomes increasingly difficult for me to enjoy the NFL as I have for decades while knowing how much irreversible damage is done to those that play the game (my beloved 1970s Steelers team included the great center Mike Webster, who came out of his NFL career brain damaged) and how aggressively the NFL has responded to those developing the relationship of repeated head trauma and CTE. But I continue to watch and bet.

A problem faced by Dan Marino and others in his position is that he apparently remains interested in working in some capacity with the Dolphins. My guess is job prospects within the NFL are dimmed for applicants who are a named plaintiff in a lawsuit against the NFL. And while the networks might not be so heavy handed as to fire anyone who fails to toe the party line, the NFL came down hard on ESPN and forced The Worldwide Leader to disassociate itself from the League Of Denial broadcast.

N.F.L. Pressure Said to Lead ESPN to Quit Film Project
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/sports/football/nfl-pressure-said-to-prompt-espn-to-quit-film-project.html?pagewanted=all

So a major problem in increasing public knowledge is what platform can be used to do so - while trial lawyers get a lot of heat, it is through litigation that such citadels as the NFL and the NCAA have been able to be challenged.

[Mudge]

Many of my posts through the years have focused on the issue of injury in sport, and the often related union-management battles that have been waged concerning them, the latter falling within what was the area of my professional expertise. When economic warfare in the form of lockouts or strikes occur in professional sports the perspective of many is to side with management because they understand, wrongly I believe, that private sector unions have lost all employee support because the unions had won benefits in the past that were unsustainable. That perspective cannot stand as justification for the lack of public outcry against the NFL's continued fight that seems to know no bounds against taking financial responsibility for the dreadful consequences that have befallen so many former players and threaten so many others, including those who play the game currently and in the foreseeable future.

The issue that what I will call the Marino lawsuit brought to the fore with star power behind it is the long term and often devastating impact that participation can have that will remain asymptomatic for years. That lawsuit, with the star power attached to it might have at least brought the issue of what I regard as the NFL's opprobrious conduct back to the front pages and kept it there, at least for a while. Three days later, when a court rolled it into the class action lawsuit that has been settled but for the judge's approval make's Marino's association with the lawsuit moot. Marino's withdrawal at that point did nothing but make clear that, if he once thought otherwise, he was done with advocating for an issue that drove him to file suit in the first place. Who can blame him. The NFL brought the class-action plaintiffs to their knees, and what forum would even a person of his stature have for speaking out on an issue that is toxic to the media. It seems that the only way the NFL's nose will get bloodied, failing disclosures even more outrageous than those of recent weeks, is if Marino or someone like him gets hit with what has befallen so many others. That prospect obviously does not concern the NFL because it knows where the media and the public stand and why, and, after all, the guys assume the risk. Perhaps, maybe, someone of truly enormous stature will step up and things will change. "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, . . . ."

Since you are old (and will likely remember this), you should know/realize that your generation already had your hero (who pre-dates DiMaggio) in a position to step up and be the champion for this problem (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE)-- instead, he labeled himself the "luckiest man on the face of the earth"...

There is quite a bit of medical data (and history) out there that strongly suggest that Lou Gehrig did NOT, in fact, have Lou Gehrig's Disease (aka amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS), but rather, suffered from a severe case of CTE-- brought on by playing running back in HS and college football (at Columbia), as well as years of baseball beanings-- all without the benefit of a helmet... there are many stories about Gehrig sustaining severe concussions (in both football and baseball), only to re-enter the same game...

So maybe it's not Joe DiMaggio (who was far from heroic in his off-field life) but Lou Gehrig that we needed to have step up and heroically expose this long-time scourge of contact sports-- of course, I readily acknowledge that Gehrig (especially in his debilitated mental state at the end) probably had very little chance of putting it all together, and recognizing that his illness may well have been brought on by injuries in the very sports he had pursued so recklessly... on the other hand, people seemed to know that his contemporaries in boxing (like Joe Louis) were obviously debilitated by their sport-- but they chose to call it "punch-drunk" in those days, and didn't seem to link boxers' dementia and loss of physical skills with similar manifestations in athletes taking repeated, severe head shots in other sports.

[greybeard]

Since you are old (and will likely remember this), you should know/realize that your generation already had your hero (who pre-dates DiMaggio) in a position to step up and be the champion for this problem (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE)-- instead, he labeled himself the "luckiest man on the face of the earth"...

There is quite a bit of medical data (and history) out there that strongly suggest that Lou Gehrig did NOT, in fact, have Lou Gehrig's Disease (aka amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS), but rather, suffered from a severe case of CTE-- brought on by playing running back in HS and college football (at Columbia), as well as years of baseball beanings-- all without the benefit of a helmet... there are many stories about Gehrig sustaining severe concussions (in both football and baseball), only to re-enter the same game...

So maybe it's not Joe DiMaggio (who was far from heroic in his off-field life) but Lou Gehrig that we needed to have step up and heroically expose this long-time scourge of contact sports-- of course, I readily acknowledge that Gehrig (especially in his debilitated mental state at the end) probably had very little chance of putting it all together, and recognizing that his illness may well have been brought on by injuries in the very sports he had pursued so recklessly... on the other hand, people seemed to know that his contemporaries in boxing (like Joe Louis) were obviously debilitated by their sport-- but they chose to call it "punch-drunk" in those days, and didn't seem to link boxers' dementia and loss of physical skills with similar manifestations in athletes taking repeated, severe head shots in other sports.

"My generation." Touché! Lou probably was predeceased by more of his childhood friends than got to hear that speech, and those who he grew up with probably suffered more in their lives than he faced in his. He probably was thinking of them when he said he was the luckiness man on earth, because, as compared to them it was the truth. Not particularly different now. Working men who depend on social security to retire, assuming they'd receive it at 65, would have on average of 2 years to enjoy it before it is goodbye, as in forever.

Joe Louis might have been punch drunk but not so much that he was unable to be a paid greeter at some big hotel in Las Vegas for well into his later years, and I think also play golf. He did not need people to help him with the most elemental tasks imaginable, and could tell Tuesday from a garbage can. Nor, I believe, did he suffer debilitating pain, and place untold burdens on his family to care for him and witness the devastation.

The sport of boxing has always been controversial. It involved and still involves too few people I suppose to catch the public's eye, and actually has too small a public to matter. More people care passionately about dog fighting then even have awareness about people fighting. In fact, the loud public voice against the issues presented by dog fighting, and the relatively small number of dogs violated by it, eclipses the deafening silence by the masses that so love their football and/or dogs over the wholesale carnage that that sport puts on vast numbers of players, including many who don't play beyond their high school years.

We, not you and I, but rather, me and many others, had this very conversation when the Michael Vick case arose, which got me dinged by the moderators, Lou died young, and not pleasantly. The average kid in his old neighborhood probably would have traded places with him in a heartbeat. Maybe the same can be said of the kids today, at least among population areas that life expectancy and quality can otherwise be had by a gun and the willingness to use it. Joe got Marilyn which is not a cheese sandwich. He also owned NY, which ain't either. He also hit in 56 straight games which stands as the only significant record that ain't been broken yet. Even Jumpin' Joe would be unable to put a dent in public opinion on the issue confronting us all, at least from a moral perspective, if he were inclined. He, no more than the Babe himself, would be.