Before quarterback Pat White joined the Redskins, he ditched a lawsuit claiming permanent injuries from concussions suffered during his one year with the Dolphins.
Apparently, “permanent” no longer means what it used to.
Seeing White’s audacity and raising it, defensive end Anthony Hargrove will sign a contract with the Cowboys -- possibly without dropping his lawsuit.
Per a league spokesman, Hargrove had not dismissed his lawsuit as of 6:00 p.m. ET on Thursday.
Hargrove claimed in the civil action filed last month that he “has suffered and continues to suffer from permanent injuries including, but not limited to, severe headaches, memory loss, depression, isolation, mental anguish and diminished self-esteem.”
To summarize, playing pro football has caused many serious neurological injuries for Hargrove. And now that someone wants him to play pro football, none of that matters.
Though we supported Hargrove during his bounty fight with the league, maneuvers like this cheapen the concussion litigation process and undermine the claims made by players who may have been seriously injured due to the NFL’s alleged failure to warn them or the risks, or due to the NFL’s failure to reasonably protect them.
The approach by players like White and Hargrove continues to perpetuate the idea that players who aren’t genuinely injured or whose rights weren’t actually violated see this not as a path to justice but as a way to supplement whatever income they earned while playing football.
In other words, Hargrove finally is saying “give me my money,” but in a very different context.