Will Brain Injury Lawsuits Doom or Save the NFL?

When Gene Locks led Princeton against Columbia on Oct.7, 1957, it took the Tigers quarterback only a few plays to discover that the middle of the Columbia line was paper thin, according to the Daily Princetonian. In the Tigers single-wing offense, Locks served as a blocker, leaving gaping holes in Columbias defense on the way to a 47-6 wipeout.

Fifty-six years later, a grayer, wider Locks sits in his Philadelphia law office behind piles of client files. Black-and-white gridiron photos of his svelte younger self look down from a shelf. In the 1970s he brought some of the first lawsuits on behalf of pipe fitters exposed to asbestos insulation. His firm eventually represented more than 16,000 asbestos clients in 20 states. In the late 1990s he helped lead the Fen-Phen diet drug litigation, which culminated in a $6billion settlement. Now 75, Locks has earned a fortune in fees. In 2011 he had planned to spend more time with his grandchildren. Then these concussion cases started coming in, he says. I remember what its like to get your bell rung.

Even as an expected 110million Americans take to their couches for the 47th Super Bowl on Feb.3, Locks is waging a legal battle that represents the most serious threat to the viability of big-time football since an outbreak of fatal skull fractures back in the leather-helmet days. Locks and a group of allied plaintiffs lawyers are suing the National Football League on behalf of more than 4,000 former players and their wives who accuse the $9.5billion-a-year business of covering up life-altering brain injuries.

Despiteor perhaps because ofits inherent brutality, football remains Americas most popular sport by far. Not only is the NFL the countrys single most lucrative sports enterprise, the league and its 32 teams also provide an atrophying television industry with its most profitable programming and an ideal vehicle for selling cars, beer, and erectile-dysfunction remedies. (The teams evenly share broadcast and licensing revenue. Ticket sales are split in a manner favoring home teams.)

Photograph by Lee Towndrow for Bloomberg BusinessweekLocks won big for asbestos clients and helped lead the $6 billion Fen-Phen case

This pecuniary feast is what makes the NFL so attractive to legal predators like Locks, although he and the other plaintiffs lawyers say they have no interest in putting the NFL out of business. I love football, Locks says. No attorney ever said, I love asbestos. So theres reason to believe the ex-players lawsuit could produce a reasonable settlement.

And yet the litigation could still metastasize and become life-threatening to the game if the NFL chooses to draw out the court fight rather than seek a swift resolution. A protracted battle could provide the plaintiffs lawyers with an opportunity to reveal sordid details about a period during which they allege the NFL intentionally obfuscated evidence of the long-term brain damage suffered by its willing gladiators.

If this is true, and if the ugly particulars are played out in depositions, internal documents, and court testimony, such a legacy could alienate fans already uneasy about the suicides of former players such as Dave Duerson, Andre Waters, and Junior Seau, all of whom suffered from neurodegenerative brain disease linked to concussions.

Im a big football fan, President Obama told the New Republic in an interview, but I have to tell you, if I had a son Id have to think long and hard before Id let him play football. Obama, who roots for the Chicago Bears, predicted that those of us who love the sport are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it will probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence.

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Will Brain Injury Lawsuits Doom or Save the NFL?