[ClevelandBronco]

Long-term player safety should appear to be more important than the outcome of any individual game, IMHO. It's one league, one business, and it hardly matters which regional department of that business takes home a trophy as long as the revenue continues to flow. You weigh all the pros and cons and do the thing that'll cost the business the least in terms of settlement money or public perception or whatever you decide is important to the health of the business.

I'd play around with the idea of disqualifying a player for an illegal, injurious hit for the length of time it takes for the injured player to be cleared to rejoin the game, or for the duration of that game, whichever period is shorter. Obviously, the league itself—not the individual team—would have to have final say on whether a player is clear to rejoin the game. Can't have the injured player's team making that determination alone or they'd be tempted to game the rule.