+2
I'm not sure what the dispute is, exactly, but right or wrong the NFL is absolutely going to have to deal with this more and more seriously in the next year or two.
It may be part of the game to get creamed, but a) that doesn't mean "the game" is good, and b) the game has changed like crazy before, and it can (and probably will) again. Human beings are not designed for these collisions, pads or no. The fact that we've been doing it anyway doesn't change our anatomy. We just can't slam into each other without lots of people dramatically shortening their life spans and dramatically increasing the likelihood of brain injuries.
One very relevant bit of football history is that Teddy Roosevelt, apparently, was on the verge of banning organized football during his Presidency because people were being injured so often and so severely. Instead, they invented the forward pass (up until then it'd just been people running and smashing into each other), injuries became less frequent, and the game changed (for the better) forever.