Former Vikings offensive lineman Brent Boyd, a longtime leading spokesman against the NFL's handling of disability claims and retirees with concussion-related symptoms, said he's not happy with the news today that U.S. District Judge Anita Brody gave final approval to a class-action settlement of NFL concussion claims in Philadelphia.

"I'm extremely disappointed in Judge Brody that she didn't protect NFL retirees," said Boyd, who has struggled with concussion-related symptoms since played for the Vikings from 1980-86. "I'm disappointed that this is called a concussion settlement, which is a misnomer because most of these concussion symptoms have been carved out of this and guys aren't being given any help for these symptoms.

"I am disappointed because it's not a concussion settlement. It's a Lou Gehrig's settlement. A Parkinson's settlement. The guys with all the symptoms of CTE, their families aren't going to get squat."

Boyd's biggest complaint with the settlement is that future diagnoses of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative brain disease, isn't part of the settlement.

"The word that keeps going through my mind is sinister," Boyd said. "This whole thing is sinister. Does anybody else think it's sinister that CTE ceases to exist about an hour ago when this settlement was announced? Because from now on, from this point forward, there is no reward for CTE. There is no recognition of CTE and its symptoms. You had to die between, I think, 2006 and when this settlement was announced. And you had to die because they can't diagnose it until you die."

Boyd said he'll huddle with his lawyers to get more details on the next steps in the process.

"As far as I know, this is it," he said. "That's something I need to speak to my attorneys about. Leading up to this, I was told that you had to opt out. If you opted out, you would sue again. Your chances of winning were razor thin and it would take years and a whole lot of money to go through that. Most of us don't have either the time or the money to go through that."

The plantiffs co-lead counsel's claimed today that the settlement enjoyed "overwhelming" support of retired NFL players because 99 percent of them didn't opt out of the settlement when given the chance. Boyd said that's definitely not the case.

"They're making it sound like we were in favor of the settlement by not opting out," he said. "That we approved of the terms of the settlement, which couldn't be further from the truth. It was very perilous to opt out. Some of us aren't going to live long enough to fight the NFL. And we don't have the money to fight the NFL.

"They have skyscrapers filled with attorneys and all the time in the world. It all comes back to a phrase I coined in Congress years ago: 'Delay, deny and hope we die.' That's the NFL's unofficial strategy for dealing with guys who built this league."