A New York state judge is forcing the NFL to reveal something it has desperately tried to keep secret: how the league's medical officials handled the issue of brain injuries during the last two decades.
On Monday, New York state Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey K. Oing issued an order that will let insurance companies that wrote policies for the NFL determine if the league knew about the dangers of concussions and deliberately concealed them from players. The issue is central to whether the insurers will pay for a class-action settlement brought by more than 5,000 retired players who accused the league of fraud and negligence because they were not told about the risks of repeated head hits.