Good read on past NFL player's pensions

[wiffleball 4,797]

good read

 

This has been one of my big peeves since I saw an interview with Johnny U. We all tend to think of NFL players as multi-millionaires, but that's a fairly recent development in the history of the league. Meanwhile, the guys who helped BUILD this league and the billion dollar franchiches, are treated like schit.

 

Seems like a fair proposisition to give these guys a measly $425 a month in pension for every year they served. That's diddly - and what they current players get. (who make more in a signing bonus than these guys made in their entire career)

 

Sounds like Ditka had a great idea. Get every team in the league to contribute 100,000 to an 'old timers fund'. That freaking chickenfeed for them. For all the talk about the history of the game and honoring the HOF and all that schit, the NFL really screwed the players who contributed so much to that history - and helped make the current owners (or their children) the billionaires they are today.

 

Hope you guys take the time to read this. - Not that long.

 

 

Plus, it rips Upshaw pretty hard - something more and more people seem to be doing...

 

 

 

 

Former Bill wants equality with NFL pensions

 

 

DeLamielleure tries to help older players

 

 

 

When a colleague heard I was doing a column about former Buffalo Bills great Joe DeLamielleure, he said I should ask him why he's so bitter.

 

I tried to tell my friend that Joe D has every right to be bitter about how the NFL has turned its back on the players who helped make the league into the thriving, multibillion dollar industry that it is today.

 

Perhaps if current players, owners and sportswriters could live in Donnie Green's world for a few days, they might understand why DeLamielleure has joined Jerry Kramer, Mike Ditka and others in crusading for equitable pensions for old-time football players.

 

Perhaps then they might have a little more compassion and not automatically dismiss DeLamielleure and his peers as grumpy old men.

 

Green was Joe D's teammate on the famous Electric Company offensive line that opened holes for O.J. Simpson in the early 1970s. He was strong and vigorous back then, able to move mountainous men out of the way, so the Juice could run to daylight.

 

But, as was the case with so many others from his era and previous eras, the game took a heavy physical toll on Green. It ravaged his knees, his back and his bank account.

 

Today, Green struggles to move about. This once robust football player now works and lives in a homeless shelter in Maryland.

 

"It broke my heart when I went to visit Donnie," says DeLamielleure, who will join Green, Joe Ferguson and other members of the Electric Company for an autograph session at Logan's Party House on Scottsville Road beginning at noon Sunday.

 

"You play seven years with a guy on the offensive line and you become as close as brothers. Donnie's a bright guy. He's not a lazy guy. But, sadly, what has happened to him has happened to a lot of other guys who played in the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s and helped make the NFL into the world's wealthiest sports league."

 

DeLamielleure, 55, and other old-timers are upset with National Football League Players Association President Gene Upshaw, and I don't blame them. Upshaw, a former star offensive lineman with the Oakland Raiders, has done a poor job of taking care of former players.

 

Of course, why should he care about pensions when he's making $3 million dollars a year?

 

After years of attempting to get Upshaw to do the right thing, some old-timers have taken the NFLPA to court. Herb Adderley, a Hall of Fame defensive back for the great Green Bay Packers teams of the Vince Lombardi era, is one of the former players who have filed a lawsuit. He receives a paltry pension of $172 per month.

 

"That's absolutely unconscionable," DeLamielleure says. "Think about that. We're not talking about Kodak or some other company in Buffalo and western New York that's really struggling. We're talking about the NFL, one of the most successful businesses in America, and this is how they take care of the guys on whose backs their industry was built."

 

Old-timers aren't asking for ridiculous pensions. They just want what modern players receive — $425 per month for each year they played in the league. That means if a guy played the NFL average of roughly four seasons, he would receive a yearly pension of $20,400. Not outrageous at all when you consider old-timers made peanuts compared with guys from the late 1980s to today.

 

DeLamielleure believes most modern players would be willing to give up a percentage of their salaries. But he says it's been difficult to educate them about the situation because Upshaw and the player reps won't allow them to plead their case at team meetings during training camp.

 

"He's like a dictator," DeLamielleure says of Upshaw. "The players get 59 percent of the league's gross revenues. I think they could get by with a percentage point or two less."

 

Ditka recently appealed to the owners, asking each to contribute $100,000 to an old-timer's fund. The Chicago Bears legend received one check for $15,000 and was so offended by the owners' miserly contribution that he mailed it back to them.

 

Though DeLamielleure wasn't around for the big salaries, he is able to get by OK. A six-time Pro Bowl guard, he didn't suffer the debilitating and long-term effects of injuries that many of his peers did. He receives roughly $1,200 a month from his pension.

 

To his credit, he is using his status as a Pro Football Hall of Famer to call attention to the plight of his peers and try to do things to help them.

 

"We don't have anyone representing us, so for guys like Donnie there's really no place to turn," he says. "A lot of guys feel like they are out there on their own."

 

DeLamielleure recently donated a gold bracelet O.J. had given him after the running back's historic 2,003-yard season in 1973. Kramer, Ditka and others donated their own memorabilia as well, and more than $100,000 was raised.

 

They should be lauded for their efforts, but it's sad that they have to resort to selling mementos they hoped to leave to their children and grandchildren.

 

Upshaw and the current players and owners should be ashamed of themselves for being so greedy and allowing this to happen. Everybody, in every profession, has a moral obligation to take care of those who came before them.

 

I'd be bitter, too.

[akaoni 0]

The NFL definatley owes it to these guys. They built the league on their blood and sweat and now many are crippled by arthritis and old injuries. This is the reason, in part why I say every whiny spoiled athlete diserves every dime they get. At least they're out on the field risking injury for thier paycheck...