In his bid to get back into football, former Dolphins quarterback Pat White has abandoned his lawsuit against the NFL that resulted from a blow dealt by Ike Taylor in January of 2010. The hit left White with a concussion and "irregular symptoms" a source told NFL.com's Jeff Darlington. Now that White is feeling better, his immediate goal is to make a return to the NFL instead of pursuing the lawsuit.
White it's always good to see an athlete bouncing back from a concussion, the move by Pat White to come back into the NFL destroys any credibility White may have in the future if he should ever pursue a concussion lawsuit against the league.
Like a number of other former players, White sued the league when it appeared his playing days were over. There's nothing particularly strange about the move to do so. The strange part is that, knowing the risk involved in coming back after a long recovery, White dropped the lawsuit and decided that he was ready to try again in the NFL.
The issue here is that Pat White is essentially placing all the responsibility of his own health on the NFL while acting in a way that he knows could ruin his standard of living in the future. The problem, as this case study of Pat White shows, is that players seem all too willing to hold others responsible for their own health. When everything is going well, players are happy to forego health risks and make large sums of money. When their health turns south, however, players, not all current and former players, seem willing to sue the organization that made them wealthy in the first place.
Pat White will be trying to make someone's final roster this season, and hopefully he can do that. He's an athletic quarterback that would fit well in a number of systems around the league as a backup. In coming back into the league, White will open himself up to serious health risks, and if he gets another significant injury, there won't be anyone else to blame except himself.
