NFL

Ex-NFL players sue Riddell for hiding concussion info

Former NFL players suing helmet maker Riddell say they have unearthed documents showing the NFL knew decades ago that football helmets were flawed and ignored the findings.

“It’s vindicating to have these documents, but also horrifying to know they exist,” the players’ lead lawyer, Jason Luckasevic, told The Post.

Lawyers for the players who settled with the league for $1 billion in 2013 did not introduce the report, which was partially funded by the NFL and published in 1970.

The ongoing suit against Riddell was brought by roughly 1,000 former players who claim the helmet maker knew about the risks of concussions but kept them secret.

The 275-page report — long buried in the archives of the National Academy of Sciences — was the product of a workshop on football injuries in 1969. Along with the NFL, the National Institutes of Health, as well as the US Army, Navy and Air Force, funded the workshop.

One of the authors of the report, Dr. Jess Kraus from the University of California at Davis, tackled the issue of face masks that were added to helmets starting in the 1950s. Players had taken to grabbing opponents by their masks, twisting their necks and causing other injuries.

“There was no experimental trial to evaluate the effectiveness of face masks,” Kraus wrote in the report. “Some physicians are now challenging their effectiveness on the grounds of an increased incidence of head and face injuries directly or indirectly attributable to it.”

He said: “Many authorities in sports medicine believe that the cause of many head injuries is directly related to the design of the helmet.”

Another author, professor Lawrence Patrick from Wayne State University, warned that applying the same standards to football helmets as those used in auto racing helmets was a bad idea because football players often suffer hits to the sides of the helmet.

Despite one author’s suggestion that the NFL should fund further injury studies, the league did not participate in another workshop, Luckasevic said.

The NFL said that it continues to “advance leading independent medical and scientific research and technological innovation aimed at reducing football injuries generally and to increase scientific understanding of head trauma,” according to a statement.

“To that end, the NFL has funded, sponsored and promoted such research, including by many of the participants in the 1969 workshop.”

Many NFL teams during that era wore Riddell helmets. The company was the league’s official helmet from 1989 through 2014.

“From 1969 to five years ago, the design of the helmets generally stayed the same,” Luckasevic told The Post.

He said he plans to use the report as evidence in the case against Riddell, which declined to comment on the 1970 report.

Last week, Luckasevic filed a brief asking to proceed with discovery in the case. Meanwhile, Riddell has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.