Sure, the sports are different and the legal framework in the US makes it much easier for these sorts of lawsuits, but there is the creeping realisation that, when it comes to contact sport and concussion, we are reaching critical mass.
Rhetoric and obfuscation, the two fall-back positions national and international sporting bodies have tended to take in the past, are not going to cut it any more.
There are no simple answers.
Take rugby, the national obsession. Players are getting bigger, not smaller, faster, not slower, and stronger, not weaker.
The extra bulk might also help absorb the punishment, but the brain remains as, if not more, vulnerable. There is no legal supplement we know of that stops it rattling around inside the skull when two forces collide.
If force = acceleration x mass, then you can see why collisions are now being likened to minor car accidents. There are not many professions where you are encouraged to have a series of minor accidents every week.
But here's the other issue: defensive sophistication has evolved in rugby to the point where the only way of creating space is to initiate collisions - particularly at test-match level, where you might see only a handful of tries scored off first-phase play each year.
The rest come about through manipulation of defensive numbering by initiating high-powered collisions and attracting defenders to breakdowns to try to win or slow the ball.
Ah, the breakdown, the bane (along with reset scrums) of the casual viewer, it might also become the bane of administrators. Watch how players enter this area now.
They do so at high speed, with their bodies hinged down at the waist to lower the centre of gravity. They're also lowering their heads.
It is inevitable, if current trends continue, that we're going to see more head-to-head, shoulder-to-head, head-to-knee contacts.
In some respects, the breakdown is starting to mimic the NFL's line of scrimmage. Did we tell you about a court ruling in the NFL this week?
Nobody wants to see the rugbys become less athletic or dynamic. The cork is well and truly out of the bottle in respect to players' size and speed and it's not going back.
This puts the onus back on administrators and, as importantly, rule makers. Some smart people need to get around a big table soon and start thrashing out some radical ideas to get the number of concussions down.
It is all very well to say to players that they have got to be honest about their health. It is fine and dandy to tell coaches to put aside self and team interest and think of their players' welfare before returning them to the fray. It goes without saying that medical staff at the ground should have access to anything that will help them make accurate diagnoses.
But when the head knocks pile up and the premature retirements mount, something more fundamental has to be done to protect the players.
And it has to happen before horror stories of former All Blacks unable to dress themselves or remember what day it is or where they live begin to emerge ... because the NFL have discovered there's a price to pay for those horrors.
