At least today’s players do earmark a chunk of their revenues for retired players. I doubt many of those judging them so harshly in this comments section carve out a portion of their own paychecks to contribute to the pensions of retired workers from their companies. It’s always so much easier to spot the speck in someone else’s eyes.

Something though that a lot of NFL fans not old enough to have remembered and experienced the pre-super bowl days is that there were a lot of top collegiate players who were drafted high and then decided to just skip the NFL all together because playing in the NFL back then was viewed by a lot of guys as being a mediocre paying part time job.

I can’t remember the guys name, but one guy who went way at the top of the NFL draft as I recall played one season and then quit… to become a surgeon.

Pro football didn’t start when the first sooper bole was played – it started about 90 years ago and kind of struggled for years and years until Sunday
December 28, 1958. In places like Chicago people passed down Bears’ season tickets through the generations then came prosperity, the big money, greedy owners, greedy players, the like and now lots of the FANS who can’t afford tickets anymore have been shut out of what they helped to build.

You buy the right to buy a ticket – that’s a new one on me. That’s their way of saying thanks to the FANS.

In defense of Jaws and all of the other older players who are stumping for improved pensions and medical benefits, when the argument is made: “what did Jaws ever do for previously retired players while he was playing”, has to be taken with a grain of salt.

The reason that I say this is because I, as I’m sure many of you too, know or have known former collegiate and pro football players and at the time they come out of college and get drafted that are ALL full of themselves and feel invincible.

The realities of future disabling injuries and reduced life spans from playing the game are so far off their radar they virtually don’t exist. They are all caught up in the moment and it isn’t until they retire or are forced to retire and then start to suffer medical problems that reality hits them.

So I’ll give Jaws a “hall pass” because I’m sure that he was a typical self-consumed jock at the time that he played, but I’ll also give him kudo’s for fostering so much debate and heightened awareness of the issue too.

Sure, all of us which that we could just by protesting get our former employers to give us something for nothing, but this issue runs deeper than that. After all, the average age of death for former NFL players is 54 (source: ESPN’s Colin Cowherd on one of his broadcasts last week).

How many of us can honestly say that in our given profession statistically we lose an average of 20 years off of our lives?

Any assistance though should be based on NEED, not based on service time. There’s absolutely no reason to sweeten a guy like Joe Montana’s NFL retirement or benefits; the guys made more than enough money to cover his own bills (and I’m not picking on Joe; just making a point about having a fund based on NEED).

Prior, however, to their being a formal union-owner agreement, players were basically not much different than slaves with respect to their rights and many of the owners were abusive and took full advantage of it. That would IMO place the onus on the owners to right the wrong and fund additional health and pension benefits for past players.

Should the players give back anything to former players? How about doing what baseball does and take the entire proceeds from the annual pointless Pro Bowl and put them into an independently managed pension fund?

I have no idea where Pro Bowl revenues go now (anyone who knows, please post the information), but in baseball the proceeds from the annual All Star game go directly into the players pension fund (hence, you do see players widely skipping the event as you do in the Pro Bowl).

Retired coal miners who have been diagnosed with black lung disease now get taken care of insurance wise, simply because at the time they were doing the work the risk wasn’t known and therefore couldn’t be disclosed.

Retired construction workers who were exposed to high levels of asbestos now get taken care of insurance and benefits wise for the same reason.

What I’m driving at is that retired players who are still alive and played back in the days of leather helmets I think could make a good case that subsequent long term neck and head maladies should be covered by either the owners and/or the current players, much like the miners and construction workers referenced above.

If you buy into that argument, then the question becomes who should foot the bill? The answer is obvious to me; the money from the reduced rookie salary cap pool should go into an independently managed trust fund to cover such claims.

After all, both the owners and the players benefit equally from the rookie pool cap reduction, because guys who have never strapped on a jock in an NFL game will now have to earn their way to bigger paychecks down the road and the owners will get more protection against having to pay out huge guaranteed bonus money with the knowledge that statistically 50% of all first round draft picks turn out to be busts.

I’m not pro or con on this; I’m just putting it out on the table to see what y’all think.

I think he had respect for them, but since the NFL Alumni tell stories of neglect from the NFL and NFLPA, the players of Jaws generation only took care of themselves…..

Jaws is reportedly still fuming because his medical insurance only covered a small portion of the office call because he went to a specialist without a referral from his primary care physician!

Then get the hell out of the way fast as the owners start diving for it and the players start throwing elbows to get to it!!!

Retired player improvements — as a rule, are agreed to at the beginning of the collective bargaining process.

Negotiating improvements for former players/employees is most often not required by law ……. therefore management can just say not interested and not be in violation of any labor laws.

I don’t get why the surprise; America has raised the last generation or two of their children to think that they are always entitled to something, not to respect the groundwork that someone else from a previous generation laid so that they can get the opportunities afforded to them.

The younger generation x’er and y’er’s simply have little work ethic and want everything handed to them on a silver platter.

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Yet everything you said here applies to the RETIRED PLAYERS in this case. The RETIRED PLAYERS think they should be entitled to money from active players. The RETIRED PLAYERS want the money handed to them on a silver platter.

Respect doesn’t equal money, people. You can respect what your predecessors did without throwing money at them just because they’re broke. No one forced any of them to play; they DECIDED to. So they weren’t paid well 30 years ago. BFD. Lots of jobs have that same problem. Do I owe all my predecessors simply because they were given the shaft by management? Hell no.

If retired players are upset about the money, they should take it up with the owners. You know, the guys who wrote the damn checks.

Because Jaws is smart enough to know that 33 concussions might jeopardize his future health?

NFL players are entitled to everyone’s sympathy because none of them had a clue that umpteen head injuries might be hazardous to their health.

I believe that neither side really cares that much about the past players. They are like fans to them. As with the fans, the former players are used by both sides to beat each other over the head with and get PR points but they don’t intend to do anything in their favor. That sickens me. If you aren’t going to DO ANYTHING about something when it’s in your power to do it, you simply shouldn’t be complaining about it as a talking point. It’s weak and worthy of scorn.

Whichever side either drops this as a talking point or does something about it will get points in my mind regardless of whether I agree with the issue itself or not.

Players of today are fighting for what’s best for them.

The old guard needs to shut up and stop trying to get current players to go bat for them. All they ever do is complain. God this sport sucks so bad.