National football liability.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: Edge of Sports

It's the largest lawsuit in the history of professional sports. More than 2,000 former NFL players--including Hall of Famers and household names like Art Monk and Jim McMahon--are suing the most profitable sports league on the planet. They are claiming that the league had direct knowledge that repeated head trauma could lead to everything from Alzheimer's to ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and that the league hid this knowledge from players.

Kevin Turner is one of those players. A former running back with the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, Turner has since been diagnosed with ALS.

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"The NFL must open its eyes to the consequences of its actions," Turner said after the lawsuit was filed. "The NFL has the power not only to give former players the care they deserve, but also to ensure that future generations of football players do not suffer the way that many in my generation have."

I've interviewed Turner in person, and it's harrowing to see someone who still has the build of a football player but without the motor functions to open and pour a bottle of water. These kinds of stories are legion, and the NFL recognizes this for the threat that it is.

Even if the league gets the suits dismissed, it faces the kind of PR debacle that rips away the carefully groomed fiction that this is "family friendly" entertainment.

The league's response to the suit thus far has been to issue one terse comment to the media. "The NFL has long made player safety a priority and continues to do so," it said. "Any allegation that the NFL sought to mislead players has no merit. It stands in contrast to the league's many actions to better protect players and advance the science and medical understanding of the management and treatment of concussions."

The players have a steep hill to climb in proving their claims. They are going to need to show that the NFL and team doctors, as in the famous lawsuits against "big tobacco," had the medical data on brain trauma and chose to disregard it because it would affect the bottom line.

Without a whistleblower, such as a former team doctor with a guilty conscience, coming forward, that will be very difficult to prove. But this is far more of a...