Former Jets WR Wesley Walker says the NFL needs to help retired players with medical care.

NYJetsNews.com

I heard about how lucky he was to have workers compensation and healthcare from being a high school physical education teacher. Not every player had that “luxury.” The NFL only gave those who played when Wesley did a two year Cobra plan when they retired. Those that got to get away unscathed were lucky he felt, but he didn’t sound bitter. It was the truth. He sounded very gracious for everything, but the pain and seclusion that is a life disabled and bed ridden 24 hours a day would snap him back to reality. He spent long hours staring at the ceiling, trying not to disturb his girlfriend while she slept, as he constantly hardly slept, requiring Ambien just to get a few hours. Wesley was a social person, but medication and the constant pain robbed him of that for years. He loved movies, but spending 24 hours a day watching them became unbearable. The pain led to drinking or being on prescription pain killers to numb the pain. He knew what was happening; he saw the worry in his children. Wesley gave up the medications, but still thinks about how much easier it would be to let prescription narcotics take the pain away. Being a physical education teacher, and spending the last 25 years enriching the lives of children, this was not the example Wesley wanted to set for his own kids.

a reply to: Vaedur

www.bloomberg.com...

The NFL is the most popular show on TV and arguably the last totem of American mass culture. Last fall, 34 of the 35 most-watched programs on TV were NFL games. That doesn’t include Super Bowl XLVIII, which set a U.S. viewership record of 111.5 million.

While the league office is run as a not-for-profit “trade association promoting [the] interests of its 32 member clubs,” all but one of those clubs are privately held, for-profit companies that reveal next to nothing about their finances. (The lone exception, the publicly held, nonprofit Green Bay Packers, releases an annual report to its 364,122 shareholders.) But the league office is also obliged, to its dismay, to release a 990 tax form each year that lists its revenue, costs, and the pay of its top executives.

Multiplying that $187.7 million by the number of teams puts the shared NFL revenue pot at just over $6 billion. 

That leaves more than $3 billion in local, unshared revenue between the 32 teams to get to the NFL’s total of roughly $9.2 billion. Most of the local revenue comes from ticket sales, which are split 60-40 for each game between the home and visiting team. On average, each NFL team generates about $100 million in unshared money. (The Packers claimed $136.3 million last season.)

a reply to: Vaedur

www.findadeath.com...

Motion Picture Country Home
in Woodland Hills

Hollywood Cares for Elderly at Own HomeAssociated Press June 10, 2004 
Tucked away on a lush 50-acre spread in a far corner of the suburbs, Hollywood cares for its own. 
For over six decades, Mack Sennett, Norma Shearer, Mary Astor, Johnny Weissmuller and scores of other film-world notables have spent their late years here. So have far less famous folks from behind the scenes at Hollywood's dream factories. Some saved their money and paid their way. Others were broke, so they paid nothing. 

The official name is the Motion Picture and Television Fund's Woodland Hills campus a state-of-the-art, full-service retirement facility with a $100 million annual budget. Yet for many, it will always be "The Old Actors Home."

The Fund had its beginnings in 1921 when the film industry's big guns, notably Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, formed a charitable organization to help co-workers caught in the ups and downs of a fickle business.
In 1940, the Fund's farsighted head character actor Jean Hersholt, after whom the special humanitarian Oscar was named found a 48-acre walnut and orange grove for sale in Woodland Hills, which is now the far reaches of the San Fernando Valley. He persuaded the board to buy it for $850 an acre. The Motion Picture Country House opened in 1942 with accommodations for 24 retired film workers. It now houses 400.

If the MOVIE/TELEVISION industry takes care of its own...SO CAN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE!!!!!

a reply to: fshrrex Yes definitely. The NFL does not care to, and either do the current players. We have to stand up against them if they ever will. My idea is for the fans to turn their back during the opening kickoff this year, but people don't care all that much it seems like.

a reply to: Vaedur

I think when it comes to football, most people think of only the higher paid players. If people struggling to get by, working regular jobs, are able to scrape up enough money for retirement and insurance costs ( and a lot of people can't even do that ), then why can't men getting paid huge salaries afford to put money away for their health care?

When you play in the NFL, it isn't a secret that you're giving yourself up to maybe incur some serious, serious damage to your body.

I'm not sure of historical salaries, so I'm not sure what retirement aged players might have been able to afford, but I think most of todays players should make smart financial decisions to look after their health. They're aware of the risks. The US healthcare system is WAY less than ideal, but they know that as well, and they're in a position to save and pay for insurance.

Ramble, ramble, ramble. The end.

Welker never played for the Jets. Just saying...

originally posted by: Atsbhct
a reply to: Vaedur

I think when it comes to football, most people think of only the higher paid players. If people struggling to get by, working regular jobs, are able to scrape up enough money for retirement and insurance costs ( and a lot of people can't even do that ), then why can't men getting paid huge salaries afford to put money away for their health care?

When you play in the NFL, it isn't a secret that you're giving yourself up to maybe incur some serious, serious damage to your body.

I'm not sure of historical salaries, so I'm not sure what retirement aged players might have been able to afford, but I think most of todays players should make smart financial decisions to look after their health. They're aware of the risks. The US healthcare system is WAY less than ideal, but they know that as well, and they're in a position to save and pay for insurance.

Ramble, ramble, ramble. The end.

Yeah I agree, but when you go back before the 80's, very few players even made a living wage. Their are also players who played a few years, maybe made a few 100s in their career, and got a 2 year cobra plan when retired, and are disabled for life and on the system, which we are currently paying for via works comp and disability.