Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
I ask again - what would you like to bet on this?
You can say it's not football related all you want but it doesn't have to be 100% BECAUSE of football. It is akin to the eggshell plaintiff rules - sure, Berry may have been genetically predisposed to this condition but if he'd have not had this thing surface had he chosen to be a schoolteacher, it's going to be called football related. It just will. You keep saying 'CAUSED' by football and that ain't how it works. Exacerbated or tangentially related to playing football is going to be enough. Your position that making it worse is irrelevant is just laughably ridiculous.
That's why these CTE cases still get such traction despite no true causal link ever being established. Oh sure, there's a ton of circumstantial linkage and we know that some people are simply going to be more predisposed to cognitive damage than others. An entire field of literature has come to the conclusion that there is SOMETHING already present in these severe cases that might not have surfaced but/for football but the bottom line is that the seed was there and all football did was make it debilitating. And in the end, all of these cases are coming down to "is there enough smoke to say that but/for football, this wouldn't have happened this way or at least not been this severe...."?
If you honestly think that you'll be able to convince an arbitrator that "Eric Berry, Schoolteacher" would've had this condition pop up to a degree that required surgical intervention....well you're being unreasonably myopic. Berry and his people will have an army of experts at ANY hearing saying "Yes, of course wearing football cleats and heavily taping ankles while making hard cuts can and will contribute to exacerbating this physical condition to the point that surgery is now necessary...." The Chiefs may or may not bring in experts of their own to argue to the contrary but if I'm a betting man, I'm betting that they just don't bother trying.
Because they will get their asses kicked badly on this one. You are applying a standard to 'football related' that is ENTIRELY too strict and in the process completely wasting your time.
Eric Berry won't be cut and the reason he won't be is that the Chiefs know that they're not going to get any traction at all on the argument that this injury isn't football related. Spend as much time talking yourself into the opposite view as you'd like, but it's not going to happen. Archive to your hearts content and we'll circle back on the 3rd day of the league year...
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Get off the betting bullshit, for starters.
There's nothing "strict" about anything here, it's the wording of the contract. There's nothing about a naturally occurring bone protrusion that any reasonable person other than a ****ing imbecile would take to mean "caused by football." To think an arbitrator would be so ****ing stupid to not see the disconnect here is ludicrous at best. This deformity is not the same as a cause/effect relationship such as Ryan Shazier becoming paralyzed due to a hit on the field.
And yes, this condition is common enough and is made worse by "school teachers," wearing improper shoes just as much as Berry is. It isn't the Kansas City Chiefs fault that his body grew abnormally. It isn't football's fault. You're grasping at straws and, honestly, insulting any reasonable person's intelligence to think the contrary. The only thing you're 100% correct on is that his continued use of football cleats will exacerbate a naturally occurring condition, which could be remedied to a large extent by the player deciding to have surgery. This is the same as if someone has a naturally occurring heart condition could make his condition much riskier by running 100 yards down the football field. An arbitrator would not side with the player on termination of a contract for the heart condition either. If you want 100% legitmate proof that the NFL will side with the team on this, look no further than a recent case where the Saints were awarded the cap space and right to cut Nick Fairly for a found heart condition.
Done with this discussion.