Dude played six games with a broken neck in 1973. What do you think about that, Troy?
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Today, The Curly R concludes its two-part series looking at the confluence of money, age and health in the NFL. Over a twelve-day period from January 21 to February 2, the New York Times and Washington Post ran three pieces on the economics of football and the health of players, current and retired. Here we tie these three pieces together and examine the politics of retirement from the world's premiere professional sporting league.
Part 1 of this series examined the popularity of the league and the harsh reality of brutality and short careers in the NFL.
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Part 1: The Pie Gets Bigger Every Year
Part 2: Enjoy it While You Can
Postscript: The Debate: Retired players at Hogs Haven
Epilogue: Too Little, Too Late by Brandon
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On the one hand are today's players and today's league. There are millions to be made, as long as you can stay healthy and productive. On the other hand are the legions of retired players, some of whom only stayed for a cup of coffee, others that played long careers. The league to which my sports affection is owed was built on those now-retired players, the guys I remember like Chris Hanburger (how can a seven year old not remember a guy named hamburger?), Pat Fischer, Mark Moseley. But these guys don't get a very big piece of the pie. Should they? Does the league have any responsibility for their health and well-being in retirement? Should there be a statute of limitations on injury claims? How do you prove what's a football injury and what's not?
Back in January, the Washington Post ran an enterprise piece in Sports on Mercury Morris, the former Miami Dolphins running back. Mercury and Larry Csonka were the first running back tandem both to gather 1000 yards in the same season in 1972, when the Dolphins went undefeated on the way to beating the Redskins in Super Bowl 7. Mercury broke a neck vertebrae in a Monday night game in 1973 and played on it for six games, only learning from John Madden after a pre-Pro Bowl physical that he was hurt. Compounding the Dolphins' doctors initially incorrect diagnosis was a later bad medical opinion by the same Dolphins doctors that the league's Pro Bowl doctors were overreacting and the Dolphins doctors did not advise Mercury to keep the neckbrace on. He did not have surgery until six years later, when he was out of football.
Mercury now has nerve damage and the league has steadfastly refused to admit any responsibility and address Mercury's problem. In fact, in the piece Mercury tells us that the league has spent 13 million dollars over the past five years on the law firm defending the league against disability claims. (The Post piece makes no mention of Mercury's 1982 lawsuit over a car crash that he claims shortened his career. In this short New York Times piece there is no mention of his football injury from 1973.)
Who is at fault and what should be the remedy if any is above my paygrade. It's an unfortunate situation and Mercury is still at it, on a personal crusade to bust open the logjam of claims by oldsters with health problems, retired players from a period in which the average player made far less money and therefore could not have the same level of financial security upon retirement.
The league wants it to be about at-will employment. You assume risks by playing in the league, here is our injury policy, blah blah blah ignore the fine print sign here, here and here. Mercury and the others are looking for the league to take some responsibility for helping players with serious conditions get back to a normal life. He has migraines. Earl Campbell and Harry Carson have trouble walking. Andre Carter Andre Waters (oops, thanks to Skin Patrol for pointing out this error) was depressed and killed himself. Turns out he had undiagnosed brain damage (TimesSelect) from years of playing football. There are hundreds of others I am sure.
Which is why it irks me when I read about the NFLPA telling retired players to fuck off. The New York Times ran a story (TimesSelect) earlier this month about four Hall of Famers, Mike Ditka, Jerry Kramer, Lem Barney and Joe DeLamielleure heading up a campaign to improve pensions for retired players. These four guys are using their names to raise awareness of the league's dirty little secret of old men in bad shape. NFL Players Association head Gene Upshaw and NFLPA player rep and just-cut former Redskin Troy Vincent just want these guys to go away. Gene sounds positively George W. Bush-like when he whines about how no one ever reports the good things the NFLPA does for oldsters and says it's just not feasible to raise pensions of long-retired players to those of current players. I'd like to see the numbers. If you really want to get wonky on this issue, head over to NFL Retirees, a blog written by former NFL player Bruce Laird.
Troy then just piles on. Get this:
Here's a little clue for Troy: those guys that seem to be always haranguing you about money? They are former players who like you were obsessed with money and getting paid to play, and like many players never thought of themselves as needing the pension. Most of these guys don't get to make a million dollars a year after they get out of the league. Their attitude toward money has not changed just because they don't play anymore and your's won't either. Possibly in a matter of weeks you may be among them in retirement, and then it will be you harassing the player rep to the union, pissing and moaning about the NFLPA not kicking down enough to the guys that opened the doors for the next generation of paid football players.Troy Vincent, president of the players association, said he had empathy for former players, but said that some players had grown weary of hearing complaints.
''On the opposite sideline, I'm getting up and going back to the huddle, and I have a coach that's a retired player, 'Hey, Troy, when you going to increase the benefits?' '' said Vincent, a defensive back with the Washington Redskins. ''At practice, you're at the airport, everywhere. Every conversation with the retired player is strictly about economics. At some point you just go, I've had enough, I don't walk to talk about it anymore.
''We are really making every effort to bridge the gap. Let's develop a relationship first. You're a Hall of Famer, tell me what I can do to improve my game, not just belittle me about what we're not doing as an association.''
Gene, I don't have a problem with him. He's a bureaucrat and has gotten fat off this NFLPA gig, and he will continue to do the bidding of his masters, the NFL owners. The issue of poverty and health problems in retirement won't go away and someday soon it will earn a high enough profile to get something done. I thought Mike Webster and
Meanwhile, look at the NBA. They just increased by 50% the pensions of players that retired before 1965, a move that the NBA Retired Players Association thinks will only benefit 40-60 former players. That's not a lot of extra money to dish out for a lot of free publicity that generates goodwill toward a league that truly epitomizes new money tackiness and excess for the sake of excess.
Troy and all the current players wishing the old dudes would stop trying to take food out of their mouths should look themselves in the mirror and give thanks for the guys before them that made the league the thing that millions of people like me obsess on and kick down some coin to the oldsters. For all these players, the shoe will be on the other foot one day, faster than you thought and you'll be wondering why you didn't lobby harder to give the old dudes their due.
Me, I'll still be a football fan, still enabling this whole thing, long after every single player in the league has hung up his spikes for the last time.
1973 Mercury Morris Topps football card from here and here. In 1973, Mercury ran for 149 times for 954 yards on an incredible 6.4 yards per carry.
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