For the past two weeks or so there has been a battle brewing between the NFL and former players of the league.
Not much is clear as both sides state claims and point fingers at the other side claiming wrong doing. Wading through the “who’s right, who’s wrong” can be complicated – maybe if a little common sense was applied to the madness, things wouldn’t have gotten this far.
For starters, many of these players stating they are broke or going broke due to medical costs related to injuries sustained during their career. Now if that be the case, I can understand their arguement.
Now on the other hand, if they blew their money or made bad choices with their money and are now claiming the former to make ends meet, that’s where the problems begin.
But where does one draw that line and decides which is which? Hard to keep track of which rookie shows up to training camp with a brand new Caddy or who just paid an enormous amount of money for a 16 bedroom house because they signed that multi million dollar contract.
All I know is this, its expensive to be rich. Rich is here today and gone tommorrow if your not careful. If your living a lifestyle that resembles a yearly salary of 5 or 6 million dollars a year – where are you going to find a job paying that much when your playing days are over. Let me know as I will be in line with you. Even the smartest investment won’t return that type of money a year if you don’t have time invested.
With the NFL claiming they have paid more than $140M in benefits to former players and they have more than done their part, they are partly correct. But that has not been enough for reasons beyond their control.
Even if a player was making the $250K a year, I’m sure they were living a lifestyle that resembled that salary – particularly if they were married as you know momma isn’t going to settle for a lifestyle of a working class person, not while daddy is a NFL player. So you figure they indulged in the nicer things in life whcih there is nothing wrong with doing that as they worked to get to that point. With the average NFL career lasting 3.5 years, thats equates to a little more than 3/4 of a million dollars earned during an average career. For someone who does not have a labor intensive physical job, that’s darn good money as they need not worry about future medical bills.
Now their career is over due to injuries and medical costs generate one more bill that they didn’t have previously. At best, they better hope they can get a job – but last I checked there aren’t too many jobs paying 1/4 million a year. So now we get to the point where we are at.
Using that illustration, which is a common one – who’s to blame really?
Common sense = no one is going to take care of you but you. That’s why when I see NFL players holding out for money or asking for huge signing bonuses, who can blame them for wanting guaranteed money – knowing that the contract they just signed isn’t worth the paper its printed on because they can be waived or cut any time during it.
So to them, I say get that money while your in a position to do so.
As for the former players, I think luck has run out for them unless the owners and NFLPA decides to show them some mercy and give them a lending hand. but the chances of that happening with the tensions are so high are slim to none.
What it’s going to take is current players coming together and voicing their concerns and a deeper interest in the matter – I don’t see that happening either as it take money out of their pockets once they leave the game. I was watching some sports show with Dan Marino, can’t remember if it was HBO Inside the NFL or what, but when he was asked about it, I thought he was a politician with safe answers he provided.
So no they aren’t going to get the help they need – and who knows, should they? Anytime your into sports entertainment, some problems are good to have as it keeps you in the spotlight when the season is over, but this isn’t one for the NFL.
