NFL Concussion Settlement is now projected to reach $1.4 Billion

The NFL will be paying the BILLS that come due under the NFL Concussion Settlement. How much? "This Much!"

In my last article entitled NFL Concussion Settlement Awards Surpass the $500 Million Mark, I noted that the Settlement had far exceeded the NFL’s projections on the total amount of claims that would be awarded.

After bashing the agreement and saying the Settlement was On the Brink of Collapse news outlets are now beginning to change their tune. In articles posted online at ESPN, Yahoo, CBS and Sporting News, they are finally beginning to see that the Settlement is far from all the doom and gloom that was being reported over the past year.

The actuarial projections from the NFL estimated that a little more than $400 million would be paid out in the first decade of the agreement. Well, it has been only one and a half years since the claims process began and the NFL Concussion Settlement has already awarded over $500 million to former players. In fact, the newest Report from the Claims Administrator for the NFL Concussion Settlement, shows that since those news reports came out at the end of July, an additional $20 million has been awarded. The awards now stand at $521,820,439.

Although the bulk of the money has gone to former players that were diagnosed with the most serious impairments ie. (ALS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and players that died with CTE), the number of Level 1.5 and Level 2 claims continue to increase, with 200 awards being approved for monetary awards, as of the most recent claims report.

The claim reports have set off some alarm bells in the retired player community with respect to the high number of former players being diagnosed with serious cognitive and motor function impairments. On May 19, 2018 I wrote an article entitled “How did the NFL underestimate the prevalence of Parkinson's disease?

Last week, Patrick Hruby, who has been an outspoken critic of the NFL Concussion Settlement, wrote an article for the L.A. Times entitled Startling jump in NFL player claims for Parkinson's and ALS pushes payout projections past 65-year total in 18 months” His article goes into great detail and I highly recommend that you read it.

For the record, I’m not suggesting that everything is going perfectly in the NFL Concussion Settlement. They have tweaked it on a number of occasions, which isn’t that unusual considering the scope of the agreement. Nonetheless, it now seems to be operating effectively.

Back when the Appellate Court denied the appeal of former players, they said “they risk making the perfect the enemy of the good. This settlement will provide nearly $1 billion in value to the class of retired players. It is a testament to the players, researchers, and advocates who have worked to expose the true human costs of a sport so many love. Though not perfect, it is fair.''

It may not seem very fair when a player gets their claim denied, but we all knew that this would happen to a certain degree. That doesn’t make it any easier on the player or family member that receives a denial letter. In some cases that denial is not the end of the road. Former players can re-apply at a later date. Some may want to consider going through the Baseline Assessment Program, or using a certified MAF doctor if they did not do so in their previous claim submission.

I have written several articles that have expressed my concerns over the relatively low number of Level 1.5 and Level 2 Cognitive Impairment awards that have been made. But, it is important to remember that the number of awards were based on NFL projections, and as we have seen, those projections have not always panned out. In fact, the NFL said “there is a greater likelihood that we are overestimating, rather than underestimating, both the prevalence of Qualifying Diagnoses that will occur within the population of retired NFL players who participate in the Settlement and the monetary awards associated with those prevalence projections.”

While the NFL definitely overestimated the number of Level 1.5 and Level 2 Cognitive Impairment awards that would be made in the first year, I would like to point out that the total amount of monetary awards for those diagnoses are still more than twice as much as the NFL projected.

In the first two years of the Settlement, the Level 1.5 and Level 2 impairments were projected to be $72,285,855 but in less than a year and a half, the actual awards have been over $202 million. This would indicate that former players are getting diagnosed with these levels of impairment at a much younger age than the NFL predicted.

Under the Settlement, the number of years played in the NFL and a player’s age at diagnosis are key factors in determining the amount of an award. For example, if a player is 70 years old at the time he is diagnosed with level 2 Cognitive impairment and he played 5 years, he would receive $283,755. Whereas, a player who is 45 years of age and has the same diagnosis and years played, would receive $2,687,843. You can see from this example, just how quickly costs can add up due to inaccurate projections.

The low number of Level 1.5 and Level 2 awards may have something to do with the actual prevalence of early onset dementia. A recent UB study of ex-Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres concluded that CTE is much more rare than we thought. Although the study was only a small sampling of 21 former pro athletes, it showed that none of the players in the random sample had symptoms associated with early onset dementia, which could eventually lead to CTE.

Barry S. Willer, a UB professor of psychiatry who was lead investigator and co-author of the papers, said he started his work at UB expecting to find high rates of early onset dementia among the Bills and Sabres players, but that his expectations didn’t pan out.

“We got caught up in the ‘CTE wave.’ It was, “Oh, God, this is serious,” Willer said.

“News coverage has given the public the impression that CTE is inevitable among professional contact sport athletes,” the researchers wrote. “The results of our comprehensive investigation … do not support this notion.”

In the final analysis, I think the best indicator on the prevalence of early onset dementia will come out of the Claims Administrators reports that show the number of players that receive awards for Level 1.5 and Level 2 cognitive impairment. Currently there are 200 players that have received awards under those two categories, but there are many more that are still in the pipeline.

In closing, I hope that former players and lawyers do everything they can to ensure that they are submitting complete claims - claims that cannot be denied and claims that are appeal proof. Right now, the Claims administrator is still waiting for additional documents from 325 players/lawyers. Since the start of the program, 1,335 notices for “Incomplete Packages” have been issued to players and lawyers, which is 71% of all Level 1.5 and Level 2 claims and 57% of all other claims.

In their July Newsletter, the NFL Concussion Claims Administrator included a list of the Top 10 things you need to know to submit your best claim package. It won’t guarantee you’ll get an award, but it will improve your chances of it not being kicked back to you, denied or appealed by the NFL.

The NFL has appealed 88 claims that were approved for monetary awards by the Claims administrator. To date, the NFL has only been able to overturn 2 of those awards.