The Washington Post has a fascinating article today on the operation of the NFL’s disability claim system for addressing benefits due for neurological impacts from professional football. Although likely behind a paywall, the article is certainly worth a read. Its point is really that the system, which is the outcome of a negotiated class action settlement, excludes benefits for a large number of former players under circumstances in which that outcome appears questionable.

I began writing on the subject of coverage for CTE and related harms under the NFL’s benefit plans more than a decade ago, when the family of former Pittsburgh Steeler center Mike Webster pursued lengthy and contentious litigation against the NFL over this subject. I have also negotiated class action settlements and had them approved by judges, and recognize that this is not just a difficult dance but, like most settlements, involves a great deal of tradeoffs, compromises and subtle considerations by the parties just to be able to close a deal. I also understand the idea that “everyone’s a critic” and that, to some extent, it is fair for the “man [or woman] in the arena” to be credited for stepping into the coliseum to work out this type of a settlement rather than being subjected, after the fact, to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

But with all of those caveats out of the way, I cannot help but think that the class action settlement, at least if the Washington Post article accurately characterizes its operation (and based on other reports I have read over the years, I don’t doubt that it gets it at least generally right), may have created something of a Rube Goldberg type benefit plan applicable to long term health issues arising from concussions and other insults to the brain, resulting in the type of debatable claim outcomes and procedural barriers to recovery depicted in the article. Looking at it objectively, the benefit plan at issue, built out by means of the settlement of the concussion class action filed by ex-players against the NFL, is overcomplicated relative to the typical design of a disability plan or disability pension plan, and it appears that this may be driving the negative outcomes for former players discussed in the article. It seems to me that a traditionally designed benefit plan, with some additional protections for the ex-players built into it, addressed at compensation for these types of claims could have more fairly, quickly and easily processed these types of claims.