George Andrie has always been a devoted father to Mary Brooks and her six siblings. But with the benefit of hindsight, Brooks also sees that something was always a bit off about her dad, going back to when she was a child. The outgoing guy she always knew suddenly became less socially engaged in the early 1980s, about 10 years after Andrie retired from the NFL.
“He was definitely a family man; I want to make it totally clear that he was a loving father,” Brooks said. “I just thought that he was needy. I thought he was middle-aged, grumpy. I knew that he was withdrawn and a little distant and had a very hard time with social situations and things like that—and he didn’t used to be that way.
“But we didn’t know. If you look back now, the man suffered forever. It all makes sense now.”
Andrie, 78, played defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys from 1962 to 1972. A member of the original Doomsday Defense, he played in five Pro Bowls and was a first-team All-Pro once—an all-timer for the franchise that proudly sells itself as America’s Team. Andrie recovered a fumble for a touchdown in the legendary Ice Bowl game against the Green Bay Packers. He won a ring in Super Bowl 6. He knocked Johnny Unitas, the Hall of Fame quarterback for the Baltimore Colts, out of the game with a hit in Super Bowl 5.
“Which used to be awesome,” Brooks said of her dad’s knockout of Unitas, who broke his ribs on the play. “Not anymore.”
Andrie is one of nearly 2,300 retired NFL players or family members of players who have filed claims under the NFL’s concussion settlement, which was reached last year after a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of thousands of former players alleged that the NFL “was aware of the evidence and the risks associated with repetitive traumatic brain injuries virtually at the inception, but deliberately ignored and actively concealed the information from the Plaintiffs and all others who participated in organized football at all levels.”
The process has been beset with problems since the settlement became final. According to the most recent report from BrownGreer, the Richmond-based law firm serving as claims administrator, some 70 percent of the 1,343 claims processed thus far have either been denied outright, denied following an audit, or sent back with requests for more documentation. The settlement has been particularly slow to approve dementia claims, which make up more than half of the total submitted (qualifying diagnoses also include death with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS). Of the 1,160 dementia claims received, according to the latest claims report, just 11 have been paid out, with another 127 approved but not yet paid.