I've read a couple good stories this week about the retired NFL
players fighting for better disability benefits. One story was from
ESPN and the other from our local free paper, The Pitch (I like this one better).
It sucks that there are soooooo many injuries in football. I never gave it as much thought before I started playing fantasy football (FF). FF forces you to pay a ridiculous amount of attention to which players are hurt and which aren't. I really don't want to care that much about rich athletes, or take pleasure when the opponent's player is hurt, but I can't help it. FF is fun, and its my guilty pleasure (at least one of them).
So despite all the pads and safety rules, football is still a dangerous sport. Some people say that they don't like to watch boxing because its too brutal, but football is just as bad! Guys get concussions all the time. Hardly anyone, it seems, makes it through a whole season without an injury. And so many guys are so messed up by the end of their career that they can barely walk. It just seems less brutal than boxing because you don't see any blood. Usually.
So from the sounds of it, I think the league could probably do a lot better at taking care of the former players. Yes, the players are rich, and many (but not all) could probably afford the surgeries. But the owners are even richer, and they're not risking their bodies, so let them chip in some more cash for the cause. I'm rooting for the players in this battle. Its a lot better of a cause for a players' union than trying to forbid a salary cap, that's for sure.
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Just saw that Tiger Woods will have $1,000,000,000 pension plan when he retires from the PGA Tour. $1,000,000,000! This is for the PGA Tour. Obviously, Tiger is the pinnacle of the sport, but John Daly will have at least $30 million pension if he doesn't touch it until he's 60. What the NFL, MLB, and NBA does to it's older former players is embarassing. To see so many of these stories of debilitated former star athletes living is squalor is bull. Teams built on the efforts of these greats are now worth hundreds of millions of dollars playing in leagues worth billions of dollars. Bull!
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