RUSH: By the way, there’s a settlement. I want to get this out there, and I’m gonna talk about it later. There’s a settlement between the NFL and the 4,000-some-odd players in this concussion lawsuit, a $765 million settlement. Now the kicker in this story is this line: “The timing of the settlement allowed the NFL to drop the issue from the national conversation before the start of the new season.”
Really? They think this settlement is going to end the conversation about this? Ha! This is only the beginning. I don’t understand what people cannot look at history and learn from it. This settlement doesn’t end anything. They just opened a whole bunch of doors now at the NFL.
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RUSH: Now, this NFL business. “The NFL and more than 4,500 former players want to resolve concussion-related lawsuits with a $765 million settlement that would fund medical exams, concussion-related compensation and medical research, a federal judge said [today].” This is an AP story. “The settlement likely means the NFL won’t have to disclose internal files about what it knew, when, about concussion-linked brain problems.
“Lawyers had been eager to learn … about the workings of the league’s Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee, which was led for more than a decade by a rheumatologist,” but the settlement means they’re not going to have to divulge that. Then the story contains this: “The timing of the settlement allowed the NFL to drop the issue from the national conversation before the start of the new season.”
I swear, they think that the concussion-related symptoms and the concussion injury symptom and factor in the NFL is going to go away because of the settlement? It isn’t. This is just gonna keep the door open, because there is a political movement underway to fundamentally transform the game. From the Tribune-Democrat, from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, which is how they say it there: Jawns’tahn.
“Citing low numbers and safety issues, Rockwood High School has dropped its varsity football program less than a week before the scheduled opening game at United. … ‘Unfortunately (Monday) night we made the decision for safety reasons to cancel our varsity season,’ Rockwood Superintendent Mark Bower said on Tuesday afternoon. ‘We went to Tussey Mountain (for a scrimmage game) on Friday night with 12 players.
“‘One of our seniors, one of the only two or three kids with any varsity experience, went out with a season-ending injury. ‘We went back and took a look at how many kids we had at that point and just felt it was a safety concern and that we should not be participating on the varsity level.'” Now, I don’t want to sit here and do an I-told-you-so, but I predicted this. It’s just gonna continue.
You even have former NFL players saying this game isn’t gonna be around as we know it in 20 years. One of the safeties for the Steelers, a guy named Ryan Clark. Do you know the NFL now says you can’t hit guys high ’cause of concussions, and there was an injury in a preseason game. A tight end for the Dolphins, Dustin Keller, who used to play with the “Jits.” That’s how OJ used to say the Jets, by the way: “The Jits.”
He got hit low, blew out a knee, and is gone for the season. The NFL is now thinking of making the hit that blew Keller’s knee out illegal. So Ryan Clark says, “What the hell is happening? We can’t hit ’em high, can’t hit ’em low. When are you gonna put the flag belts on us?” meaning: When are you gonna turn this into flag football? Number 25 of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan Clark.
I’m telling you, folks.
Time will tell.