The Final Penalty

Philadelphia was freezing. Teeth-chattering winds whipped across every pocket of the city on Jan. 11, 1981, down to Veterans Stadium, where thousands of tightly packed fans, thrumming with manic energy, were fixated on the unforgiving playing field.

There, the Philadelphia Eagles were hosting the NFC championship game and fighting for a ticket to Super Bowl XV. Standing in their way were the favored Dallas Cowboys — America’s Team, Tom Landry and his fedora, perennial Super Bowl contenders.

Five years earlier, the Eagles had been a laughingstock, buried under the wreckage of nine consecutive seasons without a winning record. To rescue the franchise, the team had hired a young college head coach whose Hollywood smile hid a simmering intensity: Dick Vermeil.

Vermeil took handfuls of mid- and late-round draft picks and infused them with an ethos of more, more, more: They would practice harder than their peers, watch endless film, strategize late into the night. That work ethic produced a core of offensive and defensive starters who rarely missed a game in an era when linemen, in particular, endured constant helmet-to-helmet collisions.

Striking an opponent’s head and leaving him dazed was just part of the battle that began when the ball was snapped; there was little understanding that such impact caused actual brain injuries. Right tackle Jerry Sisemore would later sum up the style of play:

“Kill the head, and the body dies.”

Early in the championship game, a Cowboys punt gave the Eagles’ offense the ball for the first time. For several days, there had been speculation that the team might be without its star running back, Wilbert Montgomery. The Eagles had told reporters that he was nursing a knee injury.

Recently, though, Montgomery told The Inquirer that he’d been reeling from something far more serious.

During practice that week, “I got knocked out,” he said. “It was probably the worst concussion I ever had.”

When the Eagles offensive starters lined up for that first drive, among the mix of white-and-green jerseys was No. 31: Montgomery. On second down, quarterback Ron Jaworski turned and tucked the football into Montgomery’s hands.

“How many concussions? Daily. I was getting them daily. Now I’m starting to stumble a lot. I get lost.”

Sisemore and center Guy Morriss, who started more than 150 games together for the Eagles, overpowered the Cowboys’ defensive line and opened a lane for Montgomery.

He rumbled 42 yards across the Vet’s stiff AstroTurf field and into the end zone, a dagger through the Cowboys’ heart. Montgomery would rush for 194 yards altogether that afternoon; the Eagles vanquished the Cowboys, 20-7, and advanced to their first Super Bowl, an enduring moment of triumph for the team and the city.

Forty-three years later, the toll of the perpetual brain-jarring hits that those Eagles endured has come into focus. The Inquirer spoke with a dozen of the 1980 Super Bowl team’s 22 starters, and with relatives of two who have died, and found that 12 of the 14, or 86%, developed a range of cognitive issues after retirement — from memory loss and depression to personality changes and movement disorders.

The former Eagles attribute their health problems to the concussions and sub-concussive hits that they suffered while playing. (The NFL long denied such a connection but has, in recent years, changed its stance, and acknowledged a link between football and degenerative brain diseases.)

» READ MORE: A timeline of the NFL’s concussion saga — and its impact on former Eagles

“How many concussions? Daily. I was getting them daily,” said Sisemore, still stout at 73. “Now I’m starting to stumble a lot. I get lost. I can’t drive by myself anywhere. I used to love driving. Now I can’t go to the store and back without getting lost.”

Montgomery, 69, is more precise.

He and his wife reviewed team medical records, which they said showed that, during Montgomery’s eight seasons with the Eagles and one with the Detroit Lions, he suffered at least 20 concussions.

Since 2008, researchers at Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center have examined the brains of hundreds of former football players. Among those who were found to have had the rare neurodegenerative disease were three members of the 1980 Eagles, including punter Max Runager and linebacker Frank LeMaster. The third, whose diagnosis has not before been disclosed publicly, was Morriss.

In the summer of 2011, more than 80 former players sued the NFL in California and Pennsylvania, accusing the league’s leaders of minimizing the risks of repeated brain injuries. The NFL denied those claims. The number of plaintiffs climbed into the thousands, and the cases were consolidated in Philadelphia federal court.

Three years later, the former players and the league settled the case. The NFL admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed to fund a program that would pay retired players between $25,000 and $5 million if they had neurocognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).

It appeared to be a welcome solution to a complex problem.

For many former players, however, the settlement program has become a source of anguish and frustration in their lives, compounding the neurological illnesses that have taken hold in their bodies and minds.

The Inquirer found that some ex-Eagles, including Montgomery, Sisemore, LeMaster, and Morriss, were stymied by delays, rejection, and conflicting medical evaluations before they could be paid by the settlement program.

Five members of the 1980 team said that the program’s doctors told them they were not eligible for compensation.

“By all appearances, the NFL tries to make it seem like they’re going all out ... But the fact of the matter is, there’s all kinds of caveats.”

The NFL settlement program reports it has paid out more than $1.3 billion. It seems an eye-catching sum. Yet among the 20,572 former players who are eligible — those who retired before July 7, 2014 — just 4,057 have submitted claims. Only 1,802 players, or 44%, have actually been paid.

“By all appearances, the NFL tries to make it seem like they’re going all out: ‘We care!’” said Lisa Sisemore, Jerry’s wife. “But the fact of the matter is, there’s all kinds of caveats.”

In an email to The Inquirer, Brad S. Karp, the NFL’s lead outside attorney, said that the league “does not decide who receives an award or the amount or the timing of any award.”

» READ MORE: Navigating the NFL's concussion settlement isn't easy. Ask these former Eagles.

Brian McCarthy, the NFL’s chief spokesperson, said separately that the league works closely with the players union to care for players during and after their careers, and offers an additional financial benefit for players who have neurocognitive illnesses.

“We believe that our benefit package and programs, which have continued to improve with each collective bargaining agreement, is as comprehensive and generous as any in professional sports,” McCarthy said.

Before they can get any money from the settlement program, retired players must first complete extensive neurological evaluations. Critics say some of the tests are inherently too difficult for a person with a cognitive impairment to complete.

“The type of assessment that was put together was not the typical evaluation that dementia specialists, memory order specialists, and the neuropsychologists who do that work would use,” said Robert Stern, a cofounder of Boston University’s CTE Center.

Court records show that payment rates vary by diagnosis. Among 2,444 ex-players who had submitted claims as of June 3 for moderate or severe cognitive decline, court records show, only 36% have been paid.

“It pisses me off. Yeah, it really does. I’m here, in a successful life, because of those guys. ... I feel a real responsibility to represent them [to get] what they deserve.”

Karp noted that independent administrators, appointed by the court, decide each settlement claim, while medical evaluations and claim reviews are also performed by independent parties.

“And former players whose claims have been denied can be re-evaluated and re-submit claims as many times as they would like over the settlement’s 65-year term,” Karp said.

The ex-Eagles and their families have had an advocate in Vermeil, 87, who has spent much of the last decade working behind the scenes, connecting his old players to doctors, researching the settlement program’s nuances, and pleading with NFL alumni officials to intervene when players’ claims languish.

“I get upset that the wives and the players, within this environment, are being put through such an almost demeaning routine,” Vermeil said.

“It pisses me off. Yeah, it really does. I’m here, in a successful life, because of those guys. I didn’t play a snap, and I feel a real responsibility to represent them [to get] what they deserve.”

There was no mention of concussions on the sandlots and parks in San Antonio, where Jerry Sisemore sometimes played football as a boy, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He had no inkling then of how the game would change his life — first for the better, later for worse — and little interest in pursuing the sport seriously.

“I wanted to play trombone,” he said. “I didn’t like football.”

But he was tall and broad-shouldered, even as an adolescent. A football coach once spotted Sisemore practicing with the school band in junior high school. “He walks in and goes, ‘You — come with me,’” Sisemore recalled.

At Plainview High School, Sisemore played a handful of positions — tight end, linebacker — before finding a home on the offensive line. He remained a lineman in college, at the University of Texas, where he was twice voted unanimously to the College Football All-America Team, an honor reserved for the country’s top players.

In 1973, the Eagles owned the third overall pick in the NFL draft. The team used that slot to draft Sisemore; in the second round, they added Morriss, who had played at Texas Christian University, and in the third round, safety Randy Logan, an all-American from the University of Michigan, who would go on to start 159 consecutive games.

That summer, when the Eagles hosted training camp at Widener University, Sisemore and Morriss, both 6-foot-4 Texans, were assigned the same room. They bonded over Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings albums that Morriss spun on his record player, listening to songs about outlaws, whiskey, and heartache.

» READ MORE: Former Eagles share stories of battling concussions — and playing through them

“It was almost like, God made us amigos,” Sisemore said. “We called each other cuñao, which is a Tex-Mex border honor thing.”

More key players followed. In 1974, the Eagles drafted LeMaster and signed wide receiver Charlie Smith; a year later, they obtained left tackle Stan Walters in a trade with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Walters, now 76, described how offensive linemen were instructed to approach their trade. “We were taught to fire out, with the tip of the helmet … and drive the other guy off the ball,” he said. “You lead with your head.”

“They bond a little bit more when they’re all going through hell together to get better.”

Vermeil arrived in Philadelphia in 1976, not yet 40. He’d spent two seasons as the UCLA Bruins’ head coach, leading them to a surprise Rose Bowl victory. “When I came here,” he said, “the Eagles were sort of in disarray.”

So Vermeil focused on what he could control: getting the most out of himself and the players he inherited. He all but lived at Veterans Stadium, sleeping on a cot inside his office. Training camp practices were held twice a day, two and a half hours each session; players wore pads and helmets, and hit each other full force.

Such an intense regimen would not be allowed in the modern NFL. At the time, though, it seemed to build camaraderie among players.

“They bond a little bit more,” Vermeil said, “when they’re all going through hell together to get better.”

During one preseason game in 1976, Eagles linebacker John Bunting was struck in the head by an opposing player’s knee and suffered a concussion — one of about 10 that he estimates he had during his 11 seasons with the team.

“That was a frightening moment. I knew I was messed up,” Bunting said. “I was scared. I didn’t play again that night.”

“The effects of concussion seem to be cumulative and this has important implications for sports where concussion injury is common.”

The prevailing medical wisdom about concussions was mixed.

A leading textbook from 1973, Head and Neck Injuries in Football: Mechanisms, Treatment, and Prevention, suggested that concussions were a “reversible physiologic condition” and that players could return to a game once their symptoms subsided.

But two years later, Dorothy Gronwall, a neuropsychologist, and Philip Wrightson, a neurosurgeon, detailed in the Lancet — one of the world’s oldest medical journals — a study they had conducted with 20 young people, which found that their ability to process information was reduced after they had suffered a second concussion.

“The effects of concussion seem to be cumulative,” Gronwall and Wrightson wrote, “and this has important implications for sports where concussion injury is common.”

Those words of warning did not reach NFL sidelines.

“If somebody had [a concussion] in the old days, you just said, ‘Oh, you got dinged, you got to sit down, clear your head. When you’re ready to go, come back in,’” Vermeil recalled. “That’s just how it was. … We were all unaware.”

Players recognized that getting their bell rung — the go-to euphemism for a concussion — could cause confusion, fatigue, memory loss, irritability. But few wanted to complain about an injury that could not be seen with the naked eye.

“It was a dark secret,” said Herm Edwards, 70, who joined the Eagles as an undrafted free agent cornerback in 1977. “There was a toughness, back in that era. You didn’t want to miss time. ‘Concussion? I’m fine. I’m going to shake it off.’”

Even less attention was paid to sub-concussive hits, smaller, repeated blows to the head that players experienced throughout games and practices. “I compare it to boxing,” Walters said. “A thousand jabs, instead of one knockout punch.”

“You blank out some, you wake up. I never came out of the game.”

The NFL soon created an Injury Surveillance System to track the amount of time that players missed due to injuries, including concussions. But researchers, including those who worked on a Harvard University study on football players’ health, found that the league would not release its aggregate injury data.

In 1978, Vermeil guided the Eagles to a 9-7 record, their first winning season since Lyndon B. Johnson was president. On Christmas Eve, they faced the Falcons in a rainy wild-card playoff at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

Before the game, Smith, the wide receiver, told Jaworski: “I want to help today, if I can.”

Smith went on to catch seven passes for 108 yards, but the Eagles lost, 14-13. Decades later, what stands out to Smith, 74, is a hit he suffered during the game that briefly knocked him unconscious.

“You blank out some, you wake up,” he said. “I never came out of the game.”

The NFL did not have a concussion problem.

“[T]he problem,” explained Paul Tagliabue, “is the journalist issue.” Speaking at a 1994 event at New York’s 92nd Street Y, the NFL’s then-commissioner claimed that players rarely suffered concussions; reporters had simply given the issue outsized attention. The comments were a telling glimpse into how the league would seek to frame the issue in the years ahead.

Another thorn in the NFL’s side proved to be Leigh Steinberg, the agent who represented top quarterbacks Steve Young, Warren Moon, and Troy Aikman.

The same year Tagliabue made his dismissive remarks about concussions, a then-record 134.8 million people watched Aikman lead the Cowboys over the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVIII. A week prior, during the NFC championship game, the quarterback suffered a concussion so severe that he had to be removed from the game. He was left with no memory of the victory.

Steinberg began organizing annual brain health summits and invited players to listen to presentations from leading neurologists.

Some of those experts contended that a person who suffered multiple concussions could have higher risks of developing early-onset dementia, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s.

“So I called it a ticking time bomb, and an undiagnosed health epidemic,” Steinberg told The Inquirer.

In response, he said, league officials accused him in private of trying to destroy professional football.

Steinberg — who now represents Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes — believed that something more important than the game was at risk: players’ “character and memory, and what it means to be a sentient being.”

By the time Steinberg started speaking out, Vermeil had been out of the NFL for a decade. Citing emotional burnout, he resigned from the Eagles in 1983, but conceded that he might one day find his way back to coaching.

In 1997, the struggling St. Louis Rams hired Vermeil as head coach.

“I became a more explosive person. And that anger not only followed me while I was working, but ... around my family.”

Vermeil’s staff included a familiar face: Wilbert Montgomery, who was appointed running backs coach. Few understood the position as well; Montgomery had rushed for 6,538 yards as an Eagle, a team record that stood for 30 years.

“Wilbert,” Vermeil said, “is like a son to me.”

Raised in Greenville, Miss., Montgomery had been a quiet, sensitive figure throughout his life. Vermeil once yelled at him in Philadelphia following a botched play on the field. Genuinely hurt, Montgomery retreated to the bench.

“Oh, I remember it like it was yesterday,” Vermeil said.

Vermeil’s son, who was near the Eagles’ bench, checked on Montgomery, then told his father that Montgomery was too upset to play. “I went back and apologized,” Vermeil said, “and he went back in and played.”

As a coach, a different side of Montgomery, then in his 40s, began to emerge.

“I became a more explosive person,” he said. “And that anger not only followed me while I was working, but it also was a part of my coming home and being around my family.”

Montgomery snapped at players and argued with fellow coaches. At his children’s Little League games, he became the parent who hollered from the bleachers.

“My kids felt embarrassed of me, because they didn’t want to hear my outbursts around the other family members, or their friends’ moms and dads,” Montgomery said. “So I had to remove myself.”

Vermeil led the Rams to a Super Bowl championship in January 2000, and then retired a second time. Montgomery went on to serve as a running backs coach for the Lions, Baltimore Ravens, and Cleveland Browns.

“I never thought that it was a head problem.”

In Detroit and Baltimore, his outbursts continued. Once known for speaking in a soft whisper, Montgomery was required by the NFL to attend anger-management classes.

“I never thought,” he said, “that it was a head problem.”

Later, he and other former players would learn that medical studies found that anger problems and depression were linked to a history of three or more concussions.

The NFL, meanwhile, was busy spreading a gospel of good news about head injuries and player safety.

In the mid-1990s, the league assembled a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee, which researched concussions in the league between 1996 and 2001. The committee was chaired by the New York Jets’ team physician, Elliot Pellman.

Pellman, notably, was a rheumatologist, not a neurologist. (Later, he became Tagliabue’s personal physician.)

Beginning in 2003, in the medical journal Neurosurgery, members of the MTBI Committee published 13 papers about its research.

The papers portrayed concussions as rare, minor health events, and claimed in 2004 that 92% of players who sustained concussions were able to return to practice in less than seven days.

Even more incredible findings followed. NFL players, the committee wrote, were “less susceptible to MTBI and prolonged post-concussion syndrome than the general population.”

Then came the suicides.

One after another, they were gone.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Terry Long; Andre Waters, the fearsome Eagles safety; former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson; Junior Seau, the longtime San Diego Chargers star.

Each had died by suicide, and all were found to have had a unique buildup of tau protein in their brains: CTE. No amount of rosy research could paper over such public tragedies.

In 2011, retired players began suing the NFL.

The players’ attorneys contended that the league had known for years that repeated head injuries could lead to devastating neurological problems, and that it purposely hid and distorted that information.

“ ... the level of impairment required for compensation was far worse than most of the players I knew thought ... "

The cases were consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

In 2013, attorneys representing the former players and the NFL began hashing out the parameters of a settlement agreement.

Stern, of Boston University, had come to know retired players through his work with the CTE Center. Some indicated that they expected to have an easy time getting paid, so long as they had played in the NFL and developed neurological issues.

Then Stern read some of the proposed terms of the deal — and was “kind of horrified.”

To determine if they qualified for payment, players would have to complete a battery of tests, including a cognitive evaluation that could last more than five hours. Such a test, for a person with dementia, “would just be impossible,” Stern said.

He entered a declaration in federal court detailing shortcomings of the proposed settlement program, which would not provide payments even to families of deceased players who were found to have had CTE.

“One of the key things that I was struck by,” Stern said, “was that the level of impairment required for compensation was far worse than most of the players I knew thought they had to have.”

He argued that some deceased players who had CTE — but had not shown symptoms of dementia — would not have been eligible to collect a payment, based on the settlement program’s guidelines.

Despite his concerns, the settlement was preliminarily approved in July 2014.

» READ MORE: Philly’s Frank Wycheck had a football career full of miracles — until concussions derailed his life

The program would last 65 years; only already-retired players would be eligible to submit claims. The size of payouts would decrease as players grew older. A former player who had severe dementia could stand to receive more than $1 million if he submitted a claim in his 40s or early 50s; by the time he was in his 70s, the award amount might fall as low as $80,000.

A third-party company, BrownGreer PLC, was selected by the court to administer the settlement program. (The NFL pays BrownGreer through the court, but the league doesn’t have the authority to fire the company.)

The Virginia-based law firm has extensive experience overseeing complex legal settlements; it has managed the disbursal of $11 billion from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and $13.5 billion to people affected by California wildfires between 2015 and 2018.

BrownGreer maintains a network of doctors, approved by lawyers representing the NFL and the players, to evaluate those who sought payments.

In 2018, Montgomery began his journey through the settlement labyrinth. His first step was to be evaluated through the program’s Baseline Assessment Program (BAP).

The former running back, who lives in Maryland, met with two doctors in the Baltimore area.

Under the settlement program, a player’s cognitive impairment can fall into three possible categories: level 1.0 for moderate decline; level 1.5 for early dementia; level 2.0 for severe cognitive decline. Independent neurologists have criticized this classification system as being outside the norm of traditional neurological care.

Montgomery said one network doctor diagnosed him with a level 2.0 impairment, while another classified him as 1.5 — because Montgomery developed a headache and couldn’t finish a lengthy evaluation test.

“So they asked me to go back and do that over again, and I did it,” he said. “But then [the program] disqualified both of those doctors.”

“Delay, deny, hope you die.”

Court-appointed special masters have disqualified 11 of the 195 doctors contracted by BrownGreer, after a review panel raised questions about the accuracy of their diagnoses. Players who had received diagnoses from those doctors were then left in limbo, and often had to complete the evaluation process from scratch.

A neurologist who served on the review panel told the Washington Post earlier this year that he felt that BrownGreer had wanted reviewers to deny players’ claims.

BrownGreer disputed that claim.

“We do not have incentive to deny claims,” the company wrote in an email to The Inquirer, “we have only an obligation to faithfully implement the Settlement Agreement.”

The company noted that it is a neutral party and its work is overseen by the court’s special masters.

At least 305 settlement claims, submitted by players who have been diagnosed with a level 1.5 or 2.0 cognitive impairment, have been denied, according to an Aug. 26 status report the company compiled.

Rejection letters inform retired players that they can file an appeal — so long as they pay a $1,000 fee.

Attorneys for the NFL, meanwhile, have appealed 166 settlement claims that have been approved for payment. Only 16% of those appeals have been successful, but the process adds to the amount of time players have to wait before receiving their money.

Bunting, the former Eagles linebacker, recited five words that he and some of his old teammates have used to sum up their experience with the program:

“Delay, deny, hope you die.”

Karp, the NFL’s attorney, said he “strenuously” disagreed with any suggestion that delays in the program were intentional.

“That claim is belied by every objective indicator,” he said, noting that the settlement program has paid out more than a billion dollars in 7½ years.

In 2019, Montgomery began the evaluation process again, this time with doctors in Philadelphia. He was denied an award a second time.

“They keep moving the goalposts,” he said.

Montgomery came to believe that he was a victim of a disturbing practice that came to light in 2020: The settlement program’s doctors had been using “race-norming” in neuropsychological screenings. The controversial evaluation tool, used in a variety of medical settings, presumed that Black players had lower preexisting cognitive abilities, making their declines seem less pronounced than those of their white peers.

Dennis Harrison, a defensive end on the Eagles’ 1980 team, suspected that he, too, had been affected by this bias. Concerned about widening gaps in his memory, he completed the evaluation process, and was told he did not qualify for payment.

The discriminatory practice reminded Harrison, 68, of an earlier era in the NFL, when some owners believed Black athletes were incapable of being starting quarterbacks.

“I just felt, how pitiful that [practice] was, in this day and age,” he said.

The NFL and the players’ lawyers agreed in 2021 to end the use of race-norming in the settlement program.

BrownGreer said that 647 Black players were automatically eligible to have their scores reevaluated; 308 qualified for additional benefits, or a higher level of neurocognitive impairment.

Montgomery was weary after experiencing multiple rejections, but his family encouraged him to fight on. He went through a third round of medical evaluations.

This time, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. In 2022, he finally received a payment from the settlement program.

“You get punished as you get older.”

There was a catch, though: Montgomery said that BrownGreer withheld tens of thousands of dollars that he was owed, and told him it was because he hadn’t been seen by a BAP doctor.

Montgomery insists that his paperwork shows otherwise: “It says ‘BAP’ all over the forms!”

BrownGreer said it is prohibited from discussing individual players’ settlement claims.

The symptoms of Parkinson’s and dementia can invade every corner of a person’s life, like blitzing defenders crashing through an offensive line. Montgomery tries to keep his symptoms at bay by exercising regularly, participating in physical therapy, and taking medication.

Like many of his teammates, he feels a tug of conflicting emotions about the NFL.

“Football,” he said, “was great for me and my family. It gave me an opportunity to do things that I never could have done.”

But the physical and emotional toll has been staggering, radiating outward like shrapnel from an explosion, touching everyone close to him.

“You get punished as you get older,” he said.

In the expansive basement of his Chester County home, Vermeil is met by constant reminders of the men he coached. From one room to the next, the bookshelves and walls are populated with emblems of his past: scuffed helmets, bronze trophies, photographs of gridiron glory.

“They’ve been here, in this house,” he said. “I’ve been in their house. I’ve flown in to their funerals.”

Among the players found in photos near Vermeil’s desk is Guy Morriss, who, in 11 seasons with the Eagles, missed only one game. “I didn’t want to give somebody else the opportunity to take my job,” Morriss once explained, “just because I was laying on a training table in the trainers’ room.”

Morriss went on to serve as an offensive line coach for the New England Patriots, and as the head football coach at the University of Kentucky and Baylor University.

In 2016, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Morriss received a payment from the settlement plan in 2018. “I wish we didn’t have to get any settlement,” said his wife, Jackie. “I wish he could have been healthy.”

In June 2022, Morriss was inducted to the Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame. By then, he could no longer speak or care for himself.

Vermeil traveled to Kentucky, and helped Morriss get dressed for the ceremony.

“He didn’t even know who he was. He died from the inside out.”

A few months later, on Sept. 5, Morriss died at age 71. Researchers at Boston University later determined that he had stage IV CTE.

Sisemore, during an interview in Maryland, recalled a pact that he’d made with Morriss when they were young men: Whichever of them lived longer would not have to attend the other’s funeral.

They were cuñaos, after all, their bond deep and unspoken.

Sisemore’s sturdy shoulders began to tremble, and he thumbed away a tear. “He didn’t even know who he was,” he said. “He died from the inside out.”

In 2019, Sisemore received $175,000 from the settlement program, for a level 1.5 cognitive impairment.

“It’s sad when you talk to your teammates, and you both end up crying,” he said. “You can’t remember the good things that you should remember. We kinda knew what we were getting into — but not really. We were so stupid.”

Vermeil has heard laments from other former Eagles. Few regret their years in the NFL, the rush of competing on the biggest stage. But the unlucky ones have been left to deal with punishing illnesses and the slow, uncertain grind of the settlement program.

He has reached out, on behalf of some of those struggling ex-players, to the NFL Alumni Association and the players’ union.

Despite Vermeil’s extensive ties to the league, despite his status as an NFL Hall of Famer, he said his calls have gone unanswered.

“There’s no shortage of resources. There’s a little bit, sincerely, a lack of concern.”

He suggests that each team in the NFL — which saw its national revenue climb in 2023 to $12.8 billion — should establish an office to help former players and their families navigate various benefit systems.

“There’s no shortage of resources,” he said. “There’s a little bit, sincerely, a lack of concern.”

The NFL said that it has spent “considerable time” helping retired players to understand available benefit plans. Teams already employ player engagement directors, the league added, to help alumni, who can also consult with the players union.

BrownGreer said that it sends quarterly newsletters with information about the settlement program to law firms that represent players and to players who don’t have attorneys, and that it has a specific email address and phone number for those who need guidance.

Something else gnaws at Vermeil.

“Sometimes you feel guilty,” he said. “Yeah, you do. It hurts, because you were … coaching these guys to be better football players. And you feel like maybe you contributed to their issues.”

Few Eagles players embodied the toughness of Vermeil’s teams as well as linebacker Frank LeMaster, a gregarious Pro Bowler who started 136 consecutive games for the team.

LeMaster worked nearly two decades, until he was 68, as a regional sales manager for a synthetic turf company. By then, his wife, Marylou Robinson, noticed that LeMaster had become forgetful — first about simple things, like where he’d put his wallet and keys.

“But then,” she said, “it got more severe.”

LeMaster started to show signs of a movement disorder, falling repeatedly. He was evaluated in 2020 by the settlement program’s doctors, who diagnosed him with dementia.

The doctors, however, disagreed about the severity of LeMaster’s illness, which led to his claim being reviewed, then rejected. Robinson told LeMaster not to worry about the settlement award; they were financially comfortable.

“But I think he knew he was in a decline that he associated with football,” she said. “So I think, for him, it was a sense of almost, like, right and wrong.”

LeMaster went through the evaluation process a second time, and was approved in 2022 for a payment that amounted, minus legal fees, to $134,000.

“They said, ‘We did not even need to put this under the microscope to see the level of CTE in his brain.’”

On March 20, 2023, Vermeil drove to Exton and visited LeMaster, who had moved into an assisted-living facility.

Eagleview Landing, it was called.

The following day, attorneys told Robinson that the remaining $54,000 that LeMaster was owed from the NFL concussion settlement would soon arrive in the mail.

And then, on March 23, LeMaster died. He was 71.

LeMaster had been adamant that his brain be donated to Boston University’s CTE Center. Hours after he died, Robinson was unsure of how to proceed. She called Vermeil, who gave her a contact for the center.

Four months later, Robinson’s phone rang. The university had the results of the exam of LeMaster’s brain.

“They said, ‘We did not even need to put this under the microscope,’” Robinson recalled, “‘to see the level of CTE in his brain.’”

In her Point Pleasant, N.J., home, Robinson keeps a handful of mementos from LeMaster’s career. Her most prized item, one she cradled on a recent afternoon, is a cream-colored football that had been gifted to LeMaster long ago.

On one side of the ball, someone had carefully drawn green and silver helmets and written the date: 1-11-81.

Above the helmets was inscribed a score — Eagles 20, Cowboys 7 — and below was a message about the traits that had helped that Eagles team reach the Super Bowl on that frigid afternoon: hard work, discipline, mutual respect, and love.

“No squad,” Dick Vermeil had written across the football, “has paid a greater price for success than you guys.”