PHILADELPHIA — The NFL is standing behind a top executive's acknowledgment that the brain disease CTE can be linked to football.

The comments by Jeff Miller, senior vice president for health and safety, “accurately reflect the view of the NFL,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said Tuesday. Miller spoke Monday at a congressional committee's roundtable discussion about concussions.

League officials have long denied proof of a connection between playing in the NFL and the condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Miller told the congressional panel that brain research on former NFL players shows a link between football and CTE. He referenced the work of Boston University neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee, who has found CTE in the brains of 90 former professional football players.

“Dr. McKee's research shows that a number of retired NFL players were diagnosed with CTE, so the answer to that question is certainly yes, but there are also a number of questions that come with that,” Miller said.

CTE is linked to repeated brain trauma and associated with symptoms such as memory loss, depression and progressive dementia. Players diagnosed after their deaths include Hall of Famers Junior Seau, Ken Stabler and Mike Webster.

Four Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter Tuesday to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, saying Miller's comments are encouraging in that the league is willing to accept the science linking repetitive hits with CTE. The congressmen want answers from Goodell by March 29 on the NFL's plans to protect current players in the league and in youth programs.

Critics of the NFL's proposed $1 billion plan to settle concussion claims call Miller's sudden acknowledgment of a football-CTE connection a game-changer.

The settlement is being appealed by players concerned that it excludes future cases of CTE. The deal announced by lead plaintiffs' lawyers and the NFL in August 2013 would instead pay up to $4 million for prior deaths involving CTE.

“Given that, the settlement's failure to compensate present and future CTE is inexcusable,” lawyer Steven Molo wrote Tuesday in a letter to the federal court in Philadelphia that is hearing his appeal.

The court heard arguments in November on the fairness of the settlement and was expected to issue an opinion soon. The NFL and lead plaintiffs' lawyers have said they do not want to provide an incentive for suicide by offering future payments. CTE cannot yet be diagnosed in the living.

The settlement would resolve thousands of lawsuits and cover more than 20,000 NFL retirees for the next 65 years. The league estimates that 6,000 former players — nearly three in 10 — could develop Alzheimer's disease or moderate dementia.

They would receive an average of $190,000, though the awards could reach several million dollars in the most serious cases, which include young men with Parkinson's disease or Lou Gehrig's disease.

“We welcome the NFL's acknowledgment of what was alleged in our complaint: that reports have associated football with findings of CTE in deceased former players,” lead plaintiffs' lawyer Christopher Seeger said.