Instead of fighting this legal battle on multiple fronts, the NFL wants the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which meets Thursday in Miami, to lump them all together, and send the case to Philadelphia for pre-trial proceedings — a ruling that Podhurst Orseck attorney Stephen Rosenthal expects.

If so, Turner, Surtain and Gadsden would join legal forces with hundreds of fellow ailing retirees, including former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon, ex-Dolphins receiver Mark Duper — who recently underwent kidney cancer surgery — and running back Ottis Anderson, a star at the University of Miami before embarking on to a 14-year pro career.

“There’s enough evidence already made public to say that the NFL engaged in misconduct,” Rosenthal said. “The question is, how much will a jury value the NFL’s treatment of these guys as cannon fodder?”

For most of its history, the NFL let the team decide when a concussed player was healthy enough to return to action. But those guidelines have evolved in recent years, said league spokesman Greg Aiello.

The league instituted return-to-play procedures in 2007, barring woozy players from returning to action until a doctor deemed them asymptomatic. The league has since put an independent observer on every sideline to further ensure that injured athletes aren’t rushed back in prematurely. Players with concussions must also pass a battery of tests to be cleared for the next week’s game.

“The NFL has long made player safety a priority and continues to do so,” Aiello said. “Any allegation that the NFL intentionally sought to mislead players has no merit. It stands in contrast to the league’s actions to better protect players and advance the science and medical understanding of the management and treatment of concussions.”

Rosenthal and his colleagues will try to prove otherwise, and can point to reams of research that indicates repeated blows to the head are dangerous.

Dr. Walter Bradley, a professor of neurology at University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, said the link between brain trauma and ailments like mild to sever dementia and “punch drunk” syndrome has been clear for three decades.

As for Turner’s assertion — that the thousands of hits to the head and countless concussions he suffered as a pro football player caused his ALS — the evidence is also strong, but not as certain, Bradley said.

“It’s a syndrome with a lot of different causes,” he added. “I’m personally convinced that trauma is one of the causes of ALS, but not the only cause.”