Hell guys, back in '74, I was a sophomore in high school and the school was buying all new helmets to lessen the likelihood of concussions. I know because when the guy from Riddell came to the school, I was the demonstration guinea pig. I had my 'bell rung' pretty bad as a freshman (playing against seniors, I got the crap kicked out of me) and so ... there I was - the test case if you will.
Anyway, the rep from Riddell removed the then state-of-art padding from the helmet, placed it over my left hand and proceeded to smash the living hell out of the padding and my hand with the helmet - yeah, I didn't feel any pain in my hand, but my hand didn't contain brain matter (there are those who would argue that the padding should have been placed over my keester back then - I think my coach even said so).
My point is that even as a dumb high school kid, I KNEW that football was a violent sport. So did my buddy whose eyes I watched disappear inside his eye sockets after he got belted ... so did my other buddy who got scissored and wiped out a knee ... and another who laid on the goal line with a ruptured spleen for 20 minutes while an ambulance was summoned.
Someone want to tell me that the guys suing the NFL didn't know that they could get hurt playing football when a dumb turd high school sophomore knew 40-years ago? The only mistake the NFL has made in retrospect, is not having standard injury waiver clauses in each and every contract whereby the athlete recognizes in writing that the game of football is violent by its very make up. If I sat on any of those juries, I'd be the guy holding out ... telling each and every one of those clowns to go eat a sh*t sandwich, whether or not they liked the taste of bread.
In any event, I do think that the glorification of the BIG HIT ... with a DB standing over the guy he just laid out, shaking his head (ala Richard Sherman) is pathetic and gawd-awful... I don't know when DB's were coached to throw their bodies at receivers like missiles versus actually being coached to wrap up around the belt -- or -- "Hey, dumb sh*t, keep your head up as you're tackling...put that face mask in their number and drive through 'em. You want to bust your neck?" ... I don't know ... just my worthless opinion, but these guys are coached somewhere, by someone, to break people up ... not to get 'em on the ground and live for the next play.