A top AFL concussion adviser must stand down, according to the league's most experienced agent, Peter Jess, who is leading a push to overhaul the committee guiding the code on one of world sport's most vexing problems.

Fairfax Media reported this week how Paul McCrory, a member of the AFL's concussion working group and associate professor at Melbourne's Florey Institute for brain research, questioned the wisdom of American football's $US765 million player concussion settlement.

Paul McCrory has reopened the debate over concussion. Credit:Getty Images

Dismissing "all the carry on and hoo-ha you get from the United States" on concussion and its extensively debated dangers and after-effects, McCrory contended media reporting on the topic was often overblown and sports like the AFL risk being "demonised" as a consequence.

McCrory left his audience at Melbourne University in no doubt he is far less fearful of links between head knocks and problems in sporting retirement than the AFL's increasingly concerned player fraternity, which has witnessed a recent slew of concussion-related retirements.