Too Little, Too Late

I enjoyed Ben's two-part series on the confluence of money, age and health in the NFL so much that I was awakened from my offseason slumber to post my own take. In part 2, Ben avoids taking sides on the issue, but I'm way too opinionated for such diplomacy. While I do feel sympathy for the former players and their families who are coping with lifelong football injuries, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that the league or the players' union owes these veterans any more pension benefits than they already receive.

Retired NFL players already receive quite generous pension benefits: $200 per month for each season played (minimum four seasons) for pre-1992 players and a minimum of three seasons for players after that year. In addition, the league and NFLPA just upped the pension benefits by $110 million for 1400 pre-1977 players in the latest extension to the Collective Barganing Agreement in 2002. That increase doubled the pension of the oldest NFL retirees, including the much-aggrieved Mercury Morris, as profiled in Ben's post. Morris gets $1400 per month for his seven NFL seasons, or $16,800 per year.

Go ask your favorite retiree if s/he gets a $16,800 pension for seven years of work. S/he doesn't? Oh.

In fact, NFL players are ridiculously fortunate to even have a pension. A vast and growing majority of Americans receive no pension benefits whatsoever. Corporations are trying hard as hard as possible to shed defined-benefit plans in favor of defined-contribution plans like 401(k)s and IRAs. The trend toward defined-contribution retirement plans reflects a larger shift in the United States of the burden of risk from the state or corporation to the individual. Whether you agree with this shift depends on your political preference, but the fact remains that today's worker is almost entirely responsible for providing for himself in retirement. NFL players are lucky to get a nickel.

NFL players, like the rest of us, are responsible for investing wisely during their earning years in order to support themselves during retirement. Retirement planning is difficult enough for those of us with 40-plus year careers, but the average NFL player's career is only 3.5 years long. Fortunately for the players, the league minimum rookie salary for 2005 was $260,000. This minimum goes up to $305, $380 and $455 thousand in years 1, 2 and 3 of a player's career. So even a player with an "average" career span walks off the field at age 26 with $1.4 million. That's more money than most Americans will see in a lifetime, much less 3 years. Why does the league owe them more?

Mercury Morris played for seven years and when his career ended in 1973, as Ben points out, the league minimum salary was $55,000, or about $250,000 in 2006. But Morris was a star player and almost certainly earned more than the minimums. Where has all of Mercury Morris's money gone? The real problem here may not be insufficient pension payments but that NFL players may be spending every cent they make during their playing years only to find that the well has gone dry in retirement. I guess a measly $16,800 per year doesn't cut it anymore when you're used to making at least $250,000. NFL players (or their handlers) should be smart enough to set aside some of their income for retirement.

But this brings us back to yet another advantage that NFL players have over many Americans: a college education. Football players are perhaps the best educated of all pro athletes because the NFL has established college football as its primary developmental source. Baseball and basketball players turn pro straight out of high school, but nearly every NFL player ships with a college degree. Moreover, these players aren't even saddled with student loan debt (like most of us) because they all got scholarships to play football.

Their free college degrees give NFL retirees an excellent chance of securing well-paying jobs outside of playing football. Football players not named Morten Andersen are in their late twenties or early thirties when they head out to pasture, which means that they have 30 to 40 years left to build a second career and earn more money for retirement. Yet this still isn't enough for men like Mercury Morris.

The final argument for upping NFL pension benefits is that the league owes permanently injured players more money for health care. While the plight of Mike Webster and other former players with long-term disabilities is tragic, it remains difficult to understand why these players can't afford the care they need with the money they earn. Football is a violent game that offers significant risk of lasting injuries. Players accept this risk when they choose this profession and again, must plan accordingly with their financial resources.

44 million Americans lack health insurance of any kind and the United States government could care less. Most of these people have earned nowhere near the kind of money that NFL players do and must fend for themselves in the byzantine health care market. Even Marines and soldiers returning from Iraq do not receive adequate medical care, as evidenced in last week's WaPo outing of squalid conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Health care is a problem for nearly everyone, but NFL players have yet another huge advantage over most people through their increased ability to afford better care.

I'm not saying that NFL players aren't entitled to a decent retirement with adequate benefits. I'm saying that we should take another look at the popular assertion that former NFL players are somehow getting shortchanged. Simply giving retired players more money accomplishes nothing. If the NFL owes its players anything it should be mandatory education on retirement planning and fiscal responsibility for all rookies. Instead of just upping pensions, the NFLPA could assign a personal financial planner for each player to help him invest and spend his money wisely. This assistance would create a lasting solution to the problem instead of simply rewarding beggars.

NFL players earn a large salary, a free college degree and a guaranteed pension. Most Americans have none of these things. I wish Mercury Morris could realize how good he has it.

"Retirement" image doled out from Despair.com