One day after the NFL pledged to halt the use of “race norming” in assessing brain injury claims by its former players, two Detroit Lions assistants, both ex-NFL running backs, decried the practice as “insulting.”
“It’s comical to me,” Lions offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn said. “It’s insulting. It’s just another hole that we have to overcome, but it’s nothing new.”
The NFL used standards created in the 1990s to help determine which players qualified for payments in a class-action lawsuit that was settled in 2013.
More than 2,000 NFL retirees have filed dementia claims, but fewer than 600 have received awards, USA Today reported. The claims were subject to “race norming,” a practice that assumes Black claimants start with lower cognitive function than whites and other non-Blacks, which makes it harder to qualify for a payout.
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Ken Jenkins, a return man who played for the Detroit Lions in 1983-84, was one of two players who submitted a petition last month to U.S. District judge Anita Brody, who oversees the settlement, asking for Black players to receive equal treatment.
The NFL said Wednesday it would no longer use “race norming” and would review past cases to make sure the practice was not applied.
Lions assistant head coach/running backs coach Duce Staley, who played 10 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers, said he was pleased to hear the league would review past cases.
“It’s two parts that I think about when it comes to this,” Staley said. “First, it’s insulting. Very insulting for that to even be going on.
“The second part is, now the NFL is correcting themselves. With the first part, (without it) being corrected, you still have a problem. But now I guess they’re coming and saying, OK, this was wrong, this, that and the other, and they’re correcting it now, which that’s what you want.”
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Said Lynn, who played six seasons for three different teams: “I think after the last year or so, some of the things that have gone down, we know we still have a ways to go. We’ve come a long ways, but we still have a ways to go. But from what I’ve heard so far, that was pretty insulting.”
Briefly
The Lions waived fullback Nick Bawden on Thursday. A seventh-round pick out of San Diego State in 2018, Bawden played in 10 games the past three seasons, missing the 2018 and 2020 seasons with knee injuries. He was behind converted linebacker Jason Cabinda in the fullback rotation. The Lions currently have two open spots on their 90-man roster.