Ex-Redskins lineman Bostic sues NFL over concussions

Jeff Bostic, former Washington Redskins center and original member of the famed “Hogs” offensive line, has joined the concussion lawsuits against the NFL, according to court documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia along with 27 other former players, Bostic claimed to suffer “multiple concussive hits and blows to the head” and that he wasn’t warned about the long-term consequences of such hits.

Bostic suffers from “memory loss, sleeplessness and difficulty concentrating,” according to the 58-page complaint.

Bostic is the third founding member of the Hogs to sue over concussions. Tackle Mark May, currently an ESPN college football analyst, joined in June, and Joe Jacoby, an assistant football coach at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., sued last week.

Bostic played 184 games for the Redskins from 1980 to 1993 and was named one of the 70 Greatest Redskins.

There are 126 concussion lawsuits covering 3,287 former players, according to a review by The Times. That accounts for 27 percent of the estimated 12,000 ex-NFL players.

A second lawsuit filed in the same court this week is a wrongful death claim against the NFL in the death of Tom McHale, a Gaithersburg, Md., native who played in college at the University of Maryland and Cornell. Filed by McHale’s widow, Lisa, the lawsuit claims her husband began “experiencing cognitive problems such as inattentiveness, depression, paranoia, anxiety, irritability, forgetfulness, confusion, impaired judgment, delusions and lethargy.” McHale died from a prescription drug overdose in 2008 when he was 45 years old.

After his death, McHale was diagnosed by Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy as suffering from CTE, the degenerative brain disease.

An offensive lineman, McHale played 87 games for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Philadelphia Eagles and Miami Dolphins from 1987 to 1995.