A.J. Perez

USA TODAY Sports

The widow of former Oakland Raiders quarterback Kenny Stabler was among those who joined a civil racketeering lawsuit against the National Football League, according to documents filed in federal court early Friday morning.

The amended complaint submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida lists former NFL players Tracy Scroggins, Quinn Gray and Danny Gorrer along with Rose Stabler as plaintiffs. The filing comes a week after Scoggins filed a lawsuit that sought relief under the civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Kenny Stabler died of colon cancer at age 69 last July. A postmortem examination of his brain by Boston University researchers showed that he had the debilitating brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE has been found in the brains of 90 of 94 former NFL players’ brains studied.

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The addition of three new plaintiffs doesn’t change the approach to Scroggins’ original complaint that used an NFL executive’s March 14 comments on Capitol Hill and allegations an NFL study under-reported incidences of concussions that appeared in a New York Times report last week.

"The intentional delay in diagnosis and treatment of CTE and repeated head trauma causes avoidable injury and death," Tim Howard, the lawyer representing the three former players and Rose Stabler, said in a statement. "Justice requires that the NFL he held accountable for its fraud and conspiracy in hiding the truth of CTE from repeated head trauma to players."

Judge Robert N. Scola ruled Thursday that Scroggins’ original lawsuit had to be amended because the filing didn’t make clear whether the court had jurisdiction to rule on the case.

Stabler, who will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this summer, is the biggest name in this new complaint, but he may not be the biggest cog if the case moves forward. Stabler, Scroggins and Gorrer didn’t opt out of the $1 billion concussion settlement, which is under review by a federal appeals court.

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NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told USA TODAY Sports earlier this week that the league expects the lawsuit to be rejected because "Scroggins is a member of the settlement class and did not choose to opt out."

But Gray, a quarterback who played four seasons in the NFL, was among about 200 former players who did opt out. Gray last played for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2008, served as the offensive coordinator at Florida A&M University and then briefly as a head coach for a charter high school in Jacksonville.

Howard wrote in the filing that Gray is suffering symptoms consistent with CTE, which can lead to the lack of impulse control, insomnia and depression.

Howard wrote in the amended lawsuit the NFL "over the past four decades actively concealed and actively disputed any correlation between repeated head trauma and CTE."

Under federal civil RICO law, damages can be triple than the actual amount awarded.

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That alleged concealment ended, according to the lawsuit, when Jeff Miller, the league’s senior vice president for health and safety, spoke at a round table discussion in on front of a Congressional subcommittee convened to discuss CTE.

"You asked the question whether I thought there was a link, and I think certainly based on Dr. (Ann) McKee’s research that there’s a link because she’s found CTE in a number of retired football players," Miller said.

It was the first time an NFL official publicly declared there was a link between CTE and footfall.

The lawsuit also cited a New York Times story — which was disputed by the NFL — that alleged at least 100 concussions weren’t reported in a league study that ran from 1996-2001.