New England football fans are as knowledgeable and rabid about the game as their counterparts anywhere else in the country, with legions of diehard followers of both professional and college teams. For obvious reasons, football at a high level resonates with many Americans and has an unparalleled fan base. The game is powerful, exciting and closely associated with drama and spectacle.

And something else that football executives -- especially National Football League owners and other league principals -- regard as anathema and wish they could just minimize or eliminate altogether: concussions.

They obviously can't do that, and the result has been a growing trend in injury lawsuits and wrongful death litigation related to the traumatic brain injuries of former and current players.

Football is obviously a flat-out and unavoidably violent game in which, in the parlance of older times, "getting one's bell rung" is hardly an infrequent occurrence.

What a stream of recent and ongoing litigation against the NFL is alleging, though, is that the league has been hiding known head injury harms from its players and the public for many decades and that it has encouraged players to compete while knowing that they were seriously compromised.

Scores of players are now demanding that the league be held accountable. Multiple lawsuits have been filed over the past year, with the NFL being charged with a number of cover-up actions.

A wrongful death suit filed recently in a Philadelphia federal court by the family of Wally Hilgenberg, a long-time player who passed away in 2008, is representative of other claims.

Hilgenberg's son contends that the NFL directly contributed to Hilgenberg's death from Lou Gehrig's disease by ignoring well-known evidence that his multiple concussions hastened neurological disorder.

Hilgenberg's suit seeks damages for negligence, civil conspiracy and claims concealment.

Source: Courthouse News Service, "Vet's family sues NFL for wrongful death" Philip A. Janquart, Feb. 13, 2012