I have more than a passing interest in pro football (get it--passing / pro football?) and a case filed in Tennessee and removed to federal court recently is simply too good to ignore for commentary.
Pro football players are always getting hurt. In fact, one of the reasons the average career length in the NFL is only 3.2 years is the fact that a large number of players suffer career-ending or limiting injuries. Almost all of those injuries occur either at practice or on the field of play during games as a result of collisions with other football players or sideline personnel, or are self-inflicted. I think it's safe to say that most players do not expect to be injured by mascots, especially mascots in the form of racoons driving ATV derivatives.
But that's what happened to quarterback Adrian McPherson of the New Orleans Saints in a pre-season game in August 2006. McPherson was on the field (Nashville’s L.P. Field) warming up when T-Rac, the driving challenged mascot of the Tennessee Titans, ran over him with a motorized cart. Blindsided by both the timing of the hit (quarterbacks in warm ups usually are not knocked down, although I took down Joe Kapp pre-game when he was with the Vikings in 1969) and its ferocity (who thought the mascot would be mechanized?), McPherson was injured badly enough so that he could not play for the rest of the season. He filed suit in state court alleging a basic negligence tort against the Titans for failure to train its mascot to operate a motorized vehicle properly, at least with regard to players "of the opposite team." Presumably, had T-Rac run over a Titan, his conduct would be somehow excused.
This case moves into the labor realm with the Titans' removal of the action to federal court. Specifically, the Titans are claiming that being run over by a mascot is an injury arising out of McPherson's "performance as a professional football player in the NFL." If this is true, the NFL collective bargaining agreement requires McPherson to file a grievance, rather than take his case to court. Here's a link to a fairly damning picture of the offender, along with commentary from Gods of Sport.
This could have some interesting ramifications -- it is clear that McPherson was injured on the field, although being run over by a reckless mascot hardly seems to be an injury relating to performance as a football player. What would happen if a fan ran down onto the field and clubbed him with a frozen lemonade? In any event, this case will sit in federal court, where the Titans are no doubt hoping the judge is a season ticket holder.