NFLPA's Revolving Door
A Call for Transparency and Accountability continue reading »
Last week, Dave received a note and a packet of paperwork from Eden Haladay at the NFL Player Care Foundation. Dave had no idea why they were even sending him something like this but we took some time to look over the paperwork and the process involved.
Keep in mind that over the years, Dave’s experiences with the various “programs” have generally resulted in a lot of skepticism and made cynics out of most of us who have followed these things for a while. The best recent example was Dave’s experience with the Hip Replacement program (read about some of that in a recent post HERE). continue reading »
Roger the Hutt and Princess Jane
Roger the Hutt and Princess Jane (click to enlarge)
Kids today have lots of short acronyms they use for text-messaging. One of our favorites is ROTFLMAO: Rolling on the Floor Laughing My A** Off! That’s what came to mind the minute we heard this one earlier today. We just had to share it with everyone.
Maybe we should be thanking DeMaurice Smith. After all, he signed the 2008 LM-2 even though he didn’t step into office until this Spring. Some of these items seem to be listed out in more detail than last year and there are other details that weren’t disclosed in the 2007 LM-2. continue reading »
Remember Gene Upshaw’s Truth Squad that was going to tell-all and expose all those awful claims those nasty retired players like Dave Pear were saying about him and the NFLPA. (You can read Dave’s post from back in April 2008 by clicking HERE.) We decided to take that trip back down Memory Lane and see what happened to The Truth Squad. Lo and behold, we were shocked to see they still have a Truth Squad page up (under the News section). So we checked it out:
First the press release that just hit the AP newswire today:
The NFL is starting a spinal treatment program for retired players.
The league will make specialists available at five hospitals across the United States to evaluate and treat retirees with spinal injuries.
Mr. D Smith Goes to Washington
If there was ever a story that probably comes close to describing NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith’s journey to his new office, it would have to be the old movie classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (read about it on IMDb HERE). IMDb summarizes it this way: “A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn’t back down.” And if you’ve never seen the movie, this is one classic well worth watching. (Click on the poster to enlarge it for better viewing and printing.)
While the cat’s away, the mice will play. There seem to be lots of conflicting public comments floating around these days. Since when did Miki Yaras-Davis become a spokesperson or advocate for retired players benefits and rights?
We’re always astounded with the creative accounting that comes out of the NFLPA. Now that the 2008 LM-2 (see the earlier post and full LM-2 HERE) has been finally released, there’s going to be a lot of articles and commentary on what different people find when reading this 810-page tree killer. Daniel Kaplan and Liz Mullen from Sports Business Journal pointed out a couple of their favorite tidbits this morning (read the entire piece HERE). Among the gems in the Journal article was the fact that Gene Upshaw’s widow received her husband’s deferred compensation probably in excess of $10 million.
Wow!
We already have guys like Mike Florio starting to work toward dividing the Players who were recognized in the suit. Seems to me that there are always those who want to pit players against one another like Pit Bull Dogs. Why didn’t Mike mention that the Man who initiated the suit and provided the early financing is not even a member of the Class and isn’t even getting paid. (Click HERE to read that post from Mike Florio on ProFootballTalk).
I think that folks should just calm down a bit and give both Parrish and Smith time to gather their thoughts and we can hear how they see it all in thirty days or so. I just hope that all of the boys who do get paid will kick in the $1,000.00 to the war chest that Bernie has requested for the legal actions that we have planned so that ALL retired players can get a few bucks next time.
Getting our hands on the NFLPA’s 2007 LM-2 financial report to the US Dept. of Labor was as close as we can get to a forensic audit of how the Union spent (or misspent) everyone’s money (read that post from last February about 2007′s LM-2 HERE). And once again, it took a while to find it and even longer to download (crashed my browser a few times) and save as a PDF file (crashed a couple of times again!). But now we have all 810 pages of this file and it was around 5 Meg of data. Then we also had to break it up into smaller sections so the special document viewer wouldn’t choke on it. So at last, here it is!
The NFLPA/Players Inc. lawsuit has just been leaked as settled for approximately $26 million! Read more on ESPN (click HERE).
New NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith certainly has his hands full. With the CBA negotiations in full throttle and an office full of old guard still trying to pull strings, he’s starting to get a small idea of the kind of organization that his predecessor Gene Upshaw left behind. (And he came home from a trip to the West Coast to find a fire in his office!)