The suicide of Junior Seau has many former NFL players saying it’s time for the league to do more to support the men who have left the game. Mike Goff, who played guard in the NFL for 12 seasons, says what the NFL is currently doing for retired players is totally inadequate.
“Players need a game plan,” Goff told U-T San Diego. “The NFL does an awful job. When you’re done, they kind of chuck you away – ‘Thanks for everything. See you later.’ The NFL is more concerned with the product is this year rather than what these guys are going to do when they’re done.”
No one knows, and we might never know, what led Seau to kill himself. But some of his former retired players say that when you leave the game, you go from football being your reason to live to not knowing what you’re living for.
“I still have trouble with it,” Goff said. “Especially when you live in the community where you played and had your best memories . . . you wish you were still out there playing, out there with your boys. . . . You can find other avenues, but there is nothing that will be the same as when you were playing.”
The NFL welcomes each year’s draft picks to the league with a rookie symposium. It would be wise to also invite the players those draft picks are replacing to a retirees’ symposium.