NFL concussion plaintiffs attorney calls Jerry Jones 'a hard-ass'

An attorney said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones took a hard line in concussion lawsuit negotiations. (Getty Images)

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones left an impression on the attorneys representing 4,500 former NFL players in their concussion litigation against the NFL.

Co-lead plaintiffs counsel Christopher Seeger of Seeger Weiss LLP called Jones "a hard-ass" during the media conference announcing the NFL's $765 million settlement.

From The Dallas Morning News:

“I think you all can assume that the NFL and the NFL owners are pretty tough individuals,” he said. “In fact, you’ve got one down in Texas who I would call a hard-ass. I think that’s a fair characterization.

“These are not easy people to negotiate with, and these were contested, hard-fought battles. And I believe we got everything we could possibly get out of the NFL in this litigation.”

Seeger was asked to clarify the Texas owner to which he was referring _ not that there was much doubt about the answer. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is a power-broker on several key owner committees, so it seems likely that he was directly involved in negotiations.

“Oh, oh, oh, sorry,” Seeger said. “I don’t even know who the owner in Houston is, frankly. I hope I didn’t offend him. I’m talking about the one in Dallas.”

KING: Concussion settlement a win for NFL

Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive lineman Rayfield Wright, one of the former Cowboys involved in concussion-related lawsuits against the league, told the Morning News the settlement was long overdue.

“I’ve been retired now for 32 years and that’s a long time, so you can imagine some of the things that have come down on some of the players right now,” Wright told SportsDay’s Brandon George. “Overall, I think it’s a good start for the owners and the players.” “Looking back at the 70s and 80s, the processes of when players would receive injuries and blows to the head that we had no idea what had taken place to the players because the information was beyond the doctors’ knowledge at that time to a point and certainly was not there for the players,” Wright said. “When you were hit in the head, you had no idea.”

Wright, who played from 1967 to 1979, explained that the conditions for treatment in the NFL were different during his career.