Armstrong v. NFL: Payouts, Denials, and the Race-Norming Fix

The NFL concussion settlement is an uncapped class-action fund, approved in 2015 and effective January 7, 2017, that compensates retired professional football players diagnosed with certain neurological conditions the league was accused of concealing. It runs for 65 years, has paid more than $1.5 billion as of 2026, and covers six qualifying diagnoses through a Monetary Award Fund, a $75 million Baseline Assessment Program of medical exams, and a $10 million Education Fund.¹

What the Settlement Pays and for Which Diagnoses

The Monetary Award Fund has no overall cap. It pays for six qualifying diagnoses: ALS, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Level 2 Neurocognitive Impairment (moderate dementia), Level 1.5 Neurocognitive Impairment (early dementia), and death with CTE diagnosed before the settlement’s approval date.²

Maximum individual awards range from $1.5 million for early dementia to $5 million for ALS. What a player actually receives depends on age at diagnosis and the number of eligible NFL seasons played, so most awards fall well below the ceilings.²

One boundary is important. A player who dies with CTE diagnosed after the April 2015 approval date is not compensated for that condition; the CTE benefit is limited to families of players who died before that cutoff. Living retirees showing cognitive impairment are meant to be captured through the dementia and other neurological categories instead.³

Who Is Eligible

The class covers players who retired from the NFL, the AFL, and affiliated leagues before July 7, 2014, along with their authorized representatives and eligible family members. Roughly 20,000 former players are potentially covered.²

A qualifying diagnosis from an approved specialist is sufficient. Players do not have to prove their condition was caused by football, which was one of the key trade-offs when the class settled with the league. The agreement is not an admission of fault by the NFL, and it does not release claims against helmet maker Riddell.²

How Claims Are Filed and Why So Many Are Denied

BrownGreer PLC is the claims administrator. It handles intake, processing, and payment, runs the Baseline Assessment Program of neuropsychological and neurological exams, and, since September 2025, resolves liens with Medicare, Medicaid, and private health plans before funds are released. Court-appointed special masters David A. Hoffman and Jo-Ann M. Verrier supervise the program.⁴

The payout totals are large, but so are the denials. By early 2024, nearly $1.2 billion had gone to more than 1,600 players and families. On dementia claims specifically, about 900 had been approved since 2017 and nearly 1,100 denied — including roughly 300 based on diagnoses from the settlement’s own approved doctors.⁵

Claims resting on a player’s personal physician fare worse. Of 1,241 such claims, only 191 (about 15 percent) were approved, more than 800 were denied, and over 200 were withdrawn.⁵ By mid-2026, total payouts had passed $1.5 billion.⁶

Several patterns drive the denials. The settlement’s dementia definition is stricter than the standard clinical one, requiring impairment across multiple cognitive domains and use of a rating scale usually reserved for research rather than diagnosis.⁵ Claims are frequently rejected on the basis that another condition, such as depression, chronic pain, or a sleep disorder, is the primary cause of cognitive decline rather than brain injury. The network of settlement-approved doctors has shrunk by more than 60 percent since 2018, and average wait times for medical evaluations have run past 15 months.⁷

Race-Norming and the 2022 Scoring Fix

For years, the cognitive tests used to evaluate dementia claims assumed Black players started from a lower baseline of cognitive function than white players. The practical effect: Black retirees had to show a steeper decline to qualify, and many did not.⁸

Former players Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport brought the issue into court in a 2020 civil rights suit, arguing they would have qualified under the scoring used for white players. Judge Anita B. Brody dismissed the suits in March 2021 but directed the parties to address the disparity.⁹ In June 2021, the NFL agreed to end race-based adjustments and to review past scores. Lead class counsel Christopher Seeger said publicly, “I was wrong… It was a failure of the system.”¹⁰

A formal agreement in October 2021 barred race-based norms going forward and committed to rescoring past claims, with estimates at the time suggesting hundreds of millions of dollars in additional payouts to Black retirees.¹⁰ Judge Brody approved the revised, race-blind formula on March 4, 2022, and ordered rescoring of dementia tests for several thousand Black former players.¹¹

The 2025–2026 Parkinson’s Fraud Scheme

The settlement’s biggest crisis surfaced in late 2025. On December 12, 2025, the claims administrator issued an 81-page audit after credible tips about suspicious Parkinson’s claims. On June 8, 2026, special masters Hoffman and Verrier filed a 51-page statement confirming there was a “reasonable basis” for the fraud findings.¹²

Five firms were identified: Douglas Grossinger, Attorney at Law; Feder Law, LLC; Pro Athlete Law Firm, P.A.; Syme Law, PLLC; and Reppert Oates & Vytell, LLC (ROV). Together they represented 98 former players in the scheme. According to the findings, the firms sent players to non-approved private physicians paid to produce rapid, templated Parkinson’s diagnoses, sometimes after a single visit and without reviewing medical history. Some players were prescribed Levodopa to mask symptoms before appearing in front of fund-approved doctors, who then deferred to the paperwork already in the file. ROV used the reputation of partner Bart Oates, himself a former NFL player, to recruit clients, and in at least some instances omitted records from physicians who had concluded a player did not have Parkinson’s. Co-counsel arrangements were used to obscure referral trails, and participants were told to avoid written communication.¹²

Of the 98 claims tied to the scheme, 57 had already been paid, totaling more than $95 million, with the firms collecting about $20 million of that in attorney fees. Four had been denied or withdrawn. Thirty-seven were still pending when the fraud was detected.¹²

The special masters barred all five firms from further participation in the program, denied the 37 pending claims, and directed the administrator to reject any future claims involving the non-qualified doctors named in the audit. Players whose claims were denied through this route may seek new evaluations from program-approved physicians.¹² The special masters said the investigation is continuing and total fraud losses “may end up being materially higher.” The ruling is not a criminal complaint, but the special masters can refer their findings to federal law enforcement.⁶

The fraud investigation has also renewed a fight over how Parkinson’s is diagnosed under the settlement. The special masters endorse the Gelb Criteria, which focus on motor symptoms like tremors and rigidity. Some plaintiffs’ attorneys argue those standards are too narrow and screen out legitimate claims that present with non-motor symptoms.¹³

1
Seeger Weiss. NFL Players’ Concussion Injury Litigation
2
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. NFL Concussion Settlement Summary Notice
3
Gupta Wessler PLLC. Armstrong v. NFL Petition for Writ of Certiorari
4
BrownGreer. NFL Concussion Settlement
5
The Washington Post. NFL Concussion Settlement
6
ESPN. Five Law Firms Accused of Defrauding NFL Concussion Fund
7
Brain Injury Association of America. Investigation Shines Light on Large Number of Claim Denials From NFL Concussion Settlement
8
ESPN. NFL to Halt Race-Norming, Review Black Claims in Concussion Settlement
9
The New York Times. NFL Race Norming Concussions Settlement
10
ABC News. NFL Players Reach Agreement to End Race Norming in Concussion Settlement
11
OPB. Judge Approves Fix to Stem Race Bias in NFL Concussion Deal
12
The New York Times / The Athletic. NFL Concussion Settlement Fraud Parkinsons Disease
13
Sportico. Retired NFL Players Parkinsons Claims