NFL Settlements and the Verdict Against the NCAA

We don't cite hypothetical outcomes. Every number on this page comes from a courtroom or a settlement. To date, the NFL has paid approximately $1.7 billion to former NFL players for neurological diseases. The firm has obtained hundreds of awards that contribute to that number. The firm obtains awards from the Settlement Program every month. Those awards are for  ALS, neurocognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease.

The firm also is the leader in brain injury litigation against the NCAA on behalf of former college football players with a demonstrated medical history of brain damage from recurrent concussions in football.

These results do not come from volume intake and mass settlements. They come from judicious case selection, persistence, and years of work.

Below is a record of what the firm's approach has produced.

$18 Million: The Verdict That Changed NCAA Litigation

On October 23, 2025, a jury in Orangeburg County, South Carolina returned an $18 million verdict against the NCAA in Geathers v. NCAA — the first jury verdict in American legal history holding the NCAA liable for latent CTE and brain disease in a former college football player.

The jury awarded $10 million to Robert Geathers and $8 million to his wife, Debra. They deliberated for approximately one hour and fifty minutes.

Robert Geathers played defensive end at the University of Georgia before a nine-year NFL career. The cognitive and neurological decline he experienced after football was not an accident. It was the foreseeable result of an institution that understood the risk of repetitive head trauma and declined to act on that knowledge.

This case was tried by David Langfitt, John Kassel, and Bakari Sellers.

The Ohio Supreme Court Opinion That Protects Your Right to Sue

Before a single trial verdict existed, Langfitt PLLC established the legal foundation that makes most NCAA concussion lawsuits possible.

On October 31, 2018, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in NCAA et al. v. Schmitz that a former college football player's knowledge of in-career head injuries was not sufficient to start the statute of limitations clock for latent CTE. The court applied the discovery rule — holding that the limitations period does not begin until a player knew or reasonably should have known that his symptoms were connected to a brain disease caused by football.

That ruling is now cited in courtrooms across the country. It is why many former players who assumed their window to sue had closed still have a viable case today.

David Langfitt served on the Court-appointed Plaintiffs' Executive Committee for the NFL Concussion Settlement and was appointed to the Player Advocacy Committee. His client base ranks among the three largest of any lawyer in the Settlement.

By the firm's accounting, David has obtained three to four times more monetary awards for players than any other lawyer in the Settlement — not because of volume, but because of how claims are built, documented, and, when necessary, fought on appeal.

If your NFL Settlement claim was denied, undervalued, or is still pending, this is a different kind of representation than what most players have experienced.

More NCAA Trials Scheduled in the Next 18 Months

The Geathers verdict was not a conclusion. It was an opening.

Langfitt PLLC has additional NCAA cases scheduled for trial within the next 18 months.

These cases involve former players from programs across the country. They are built on the same deposition record — NCAA executives, on camera, acknowledging a duty to protect players — that the Geathers jury found persuasive enough to deliberate for less than two hours.

What Makes These Results Different

• First jury verdict against the NCAA for latent CTE — Geathers v. NCAA, Orangeburg County, SC, October 2025
• Watershed appellate authority — Schmitz v. NCAA, Ohio Supreme Court, October 2018, protecting players' right to sue under the discovery rule
• Proprietary deposition library — video testimony from NCAA executives across multiple state-court matters, establishing institutional knowledge of the risk
• Investment-based case selection — approximately one in ten inquiries accepted; every case the firm takes is resourced to go to trial