The attorney representing retired players accusing the NFL of "delaying concussion settlement payments defended the NFL's handling of the settlement process in federal court," according to Jim Baumbach of NEWSDAY. Attorney Christopher Seeger said, "All settlements have growing pains. None of them are perfect. This one is performing really, really well." Seeger on Monday attributed the delays in settlement payments to the time spent "ferreting out 'potentially hundreds' of fraudulent claims that have been filed by some former players in the year since claims were allowed to be filed." Seeger: "People who have attempted to game the system have to take some responsibility for the delay that was caused in sorting out the potential fraud problem. If the fraudulent claims were paid out, you're talking more than one billion dollars." Seeger said the court-appointed claims administrator uses "analytics that were designed to catch what would be fraud." But he added the system "surprisingly slowed down the settlement early on because it dragged hundreds of claims that were potentially fraudulent" (NEWSDAY, 4/4).
DANGER ZONE: NBC's Bob Costas, addressing the dangers associated with playing tackle football, said there is a "day of reckoning" coming for the NFL, as the league "has in effect tacitly admitted" so with some of its new rule changes regarding player safety. Costas, appearing yesterday on the "AP Sports Weekly" podcast, said, "What they're saying is, 'If we don't make significant changes then the popularity of the game might be affected, but also participation will be affected.'" Costas said once the NFL "cleared out all the Dr. No's that they had there and all the denial guys they had there and had some people in the medical department that were willing to speak in a straightforward fashion," then the issue of head trauma began to be addressed ("AP Sports Weekly," PODCASTONE.com, 4/3).
STAYING SHARP: The CFL Alumni Association announced a partnership with online brain exercise and assessment program BrainHQ. The subscription service also has a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense "covering active, reserve, and retired Marines, U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy personnel." A company official said that BrainHQ works with MLB, NHL, NBA and FIFA players as well, but "wouldn't divulge specific users" (GLOBE & MAIL, 4/4).
