Paging Sam McCullum – Dave Duerson’s Successor on NFL Disability Board

If there is a single thing on which I believe folks of good conscience should agree in the wake of the February suicide of Dave Duerson, it is that NFL Player Care – a partnership of the National Football League and the Players Association – must reopen the books of those retired players who had filed unsuccessful disability claims during Duerson’s tenure on the plan board.

I have raised this issue in numerous blog posts and Beyond Chron columns over the last six months. I also tried in vain to get the most prominent voices in sports concussion reform to step up to this challenge at the May news conference in Boston for the announcement of Duerson’s own postmortem finding of chronic traumatic encephelopathy.

(To his credit, one of Alan Schwarz’s last stories for The New York Times before he left the concussion beat included the news that disability attorney John Hogan was contemplating a request for a federal Labor Department audit of disputed Duerson-deliberated cases. I’ll have more on this aspect of the story as it develops.)

Instead of pressing for the most beneficial outcome of Duerson’s martyrdom – if martyrdom it was – the media have settled for the saccharine and least substantive takeout: speculation that this stalwart of the 1985-86 Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears, later a fallen business tycoon, showed great vision in shooting himself in the chest and directing in his suicide note for his brain to be donated for CTE research.

I am sorry if my sour footnotes to the conventional view of Duerson hurt the feelings of the family and friends of someone who had a stellar reputation before CTE sent him into a professional and personal spiral. But the truth of the matter is that many, many living football veterans suffer from the same occupation-related brain disorder he had. Unfortunately, the public record shows that Duerson was not helpful to their cause in life.

Whether he will be helpful in death depends largely on how hard the NFL and the NFLPA get pushed to do the right thing, moving forward, in his honor. For starters, there are at least 11 ex-players with rejected claims for acute-care expenses under the John Mackey 88 Plan (which, of course, was named after another recently deceased star).

League and union apologists rationalize that Duerson’s votes on the disability board were confidential or, in any event, couldn’t have changed the outcomes for those 11. But does anyone really think it would kill the $9-billion-a-year pro football industry and its disability system to give such cases a second look?

I emailed Sam McCullum, who has said in a series of public remarks to dissident retirees – statements charitably described as naïve – that he wishes everyone would settle down and realize that the NFLPA was and is doing a fine job for them. McCullum refers to himself as Duerson’s replacement on the disability review board. (Details of the NFLPA’s appointment procedures and the board’s work as a whole have not been clearly and publicly explained. More about all this, as well, in upcoming posts.)

I asked McCullum if he supports a reexamination of rejected disability claims during his predecessor’s tenure. McCullum did not respond. If he eventually gets back to me on this matter, I will post his words immediately and in full.

Below are links to much of my Duerson coverage. I provide them here because this blog’s recent move to a new web domain changed the links. Readers also can scroll back through the archives or use the blog’s search form for additional info.

Irv Muchnick

Duerson Suicide Shows NFL Body Count Rising Like WWE’s — But With New Intrigue (full text)

For Dave Duerson, ’88 Plan’ Wasn’t Enough

‘Dave Duerson Knew Nothing About Concussions and Players’ Best Interests’ – My Exclusive Interview With Ex-Minnesota Viking Brent Boyd

Dave Duerson’s Posthumous ‘Deadspin’ Interview Is More Revealing Than Candid

Out of Respect for Dave Duerson, NFL Must Reopen Rejected Disability Claims