Who Will Miss the Hall of Famers?

There’s an old expression, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”  Usually it is good advice.  But sometimes the messenger is responsible for creating the impulse to shoot in the first place.

There is a legitimate message to be disseminated about ex-football players and their post-career health and financial problems.  Many players played in the NFL for only one or two seasons, incurred minor to serious injuries, and then had to struggle with finding work in occupations that didn’t pay as well as “pro football player.”  The NFL teaches incoming rookies about financial prudence, but it’s hard to be prudent when you go from an unpaid college player to a pro making 6 or 7 figures a year and then after only one or two seasons you have to enter the mundane workforce.  Few of them can leverage a short and mediocre football career into a seat in the analyst’s booth or secure a high-paying gig as an assistant coach in the NFL or in college.

That said, the demand issued by certain football Hall of Famers that they be provided with health insurance coverage and paid a salary or else they will boycott future HoF induction ceremonies creates the impulse to start firing away with both barrels. 

Those making the demands, led by Eric Dickerson and including superstars such as Joe Nameth and Lawrence Taylor, sent a letter to Roger Goodell contending that they are suffering from health issues related to their playing time, and financial problems, and that the cost to the NFL of providing health care for all living Hall of Famers would be around a mere $4 million per year (if the cost isn't that much, why don't they buy it for themselves?).  I don’t know if they provided an estimate for the cost of the “salaries.”

These players are in the Football Hall of Fame, meaning they are the best of the best; these are elite players who had long careers in the NFL and, at some point, signed lucrative contracts after their rookie deals had expired.  These players certainly earned more money than those rank and file players who, well, AREN’T in the Hall of Fame.  Yet they contend that they, and not the rank and file players, need financial support and health care after they retire.

Okay, maybe there are a good number of Hall of Famers who played the bulk of their careers before television money made the NFL what it is today, basically a license to print money.  In baseball, it is always mind-boggling to go back to when the Dodgers refused to negotiate with Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale simply because they had an agent (and they demanded $100,000), or when the Pirates told the league’s top home run hitter Ralph Kiner that he was getting a pay cut and that if he didn’t report to camp they’d lose just as many games without him as they had won with him.  Many of these older Hall of Famers may be in financial distress because they played when even great players were exploited by the owners and weren’t paid what they were worth.

But still these are, by definition, the most successful football players of all time.  If anyone should have been able to save their money and buy some post-career health insurance, even for people with pre-existing conditions such as former football players, it should have been these people.  These are also the players who could leverage their former celebrity and make money by doing endorsements, making public appearances, and signing autographs.  But instead of doing any of those not-very-taxing jobs, they want the NFL to cut them a check, which would basically an appearance fee for them showing up at the HoF induction ceremony each year.

You could make the argument that what the Hall of Famers are demanding is the tip of the camel’s nose in the tent, that once they get these benefits they can start lobbying to make them universal.  But it’s not the right messenger for this particular message.  Don’t start with the players who shouldn’t need help, start with the ones who do. 

The NFL is immensely wealthy, and legalized sports betting is only going to make them wealthier.  Providing post-career health care and financial support for those players not lucky enough to play for a decade and who didn’t earn huge paychecks would cost million, but the NFL is making billions, and it is making that money on the backs of the rank and file players.  Eric Dickinson was a great player, but he had no-name linesmen blocking for him and unknown linebackers chasing him, and his success is in part due to those other players.

In any context, providing support for former players makes sense.  In the context of ailments like CTE, not to mention the lesser physical traumas suffered by players when 280-pound linemen fall on them, the moral obligation becomes even greater.  Throw in the fact that contracts in the NFL (save for elite quarterbacks) are not guaranteed and that players can be (and are) cut at any time, and the necessity for the NFL to take care of its own is overwhelming.

As for the Hall of Famers?  Let ‘em walk.  Terrell Owens skipped his own induction ceremony, and no one really minded.  Go ahead and let Joe Nameth clear up one weekend on his calendar.  Maybe he can use the time to make some money at an autograph show.