Former Eagles Player Chris Maragos Wins $43.5M in Lawsuit Over Career-Ending Injury

The two-time Super Bowl winning safety thinks he could still be playing in the NFL if not for a misdiagnosis.
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Former Eagles player Chris Maragos is poised to receive $43.5 million from orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Bradley and the Rothman Orthopaedics Institute after they were found liable for “medical negligence” in regard to an injury that cut short Maragos’s NFL playing career.

A jury in Philadelphia has ordered Bradley to pay $29.2 million and the Rothman Orthopaedics Institute to pay $14.3 million to Maragos.

“We’re really grateful and thankful for the outcome,” Maragos said, via the Philadelphia Inquirer. “We had the truth on our side, and the jury saw it.”

Maragos played his last NFL game in Week 6 of the 2017 season with the Eagles before being placed on injured reserve for a knee injury.

Maragos, who was 30 at the time, was first diagnosed with a torn posterior cruciate ligament and underwent surgery to repair it. Ahead of the 2018 season, though, his medical team ignored a meniscus tear, aside from the PCL injury, according to Maragos’s lawsuit.

Maragos was released by the Eagles after the season and officially retired from the league in July 2019.

The trial began two weeks ago, and Maragos’s former teammates Nick Foles, Trey Burton and Jordan Hicks provided testimony.

Now 36, Maragos said he thinks he could’ve continued playing in the NFL if not for his misdiagnosis.

“On Sunday, my team played in the Super Bowl, and I could only watch and wonder whether I could have been out there with them had I received proper medical care,” Maragos said, via Eagles Today. “While I live in constant pain and will never get back on the field, I hope this decision sends a message to teams’ medical staffs that players are people, not just contracts.”

Maragos played in the NFL from 2010 to ’18, first playing one season with the 49ers, then three years with the Seahawks before finishing his career with the Eagles for five seasons.


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Madison Williams
MADISON WILLIAMS

Madison Williams is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated, where she specializes in tennis but covers a wide range of sports from a national perspective. Before joining SI in 2022, Williams worked at The Sporting News. Having graduated from Augustana College, she completed a master’s in sports media at Northwestern University. She is a dog mom and an avid reader.