Dave Pear's Blog

A new article from the Boston Globe’s Albert Breer, titled “Union’s pitch for capped 2010 shot down provides just a little more insight into why the League doesn’t want a cap next year.” The best part is an Update paragraph that was added to the end of the story:

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For the past couple of days, we had a run of comments on an earlier post between Burt Grossman and Lionel James about their missing Severance Pay. It turns out that Burt has been going in circles with the NFL, the Eagles front office and the NFLPA trying to get the $40,000 in severance that he had coming after retiring from the Eagles in 1994 based on rules set out in the CBA. We even put him in touch with Mitchell Welch from Gay Culverhouse’s Players’ Outreach so they could see firsthand how little assistance retired players can expect once they’re out of the game. Like the old expression goes: The lights are on but no one’s home.

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Rep. Linda Sánchez

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We’ve recently had some comments and questions come up regarding Severance Pay for players who retired in the past 10 – 15 years. And, of course, a lot of broader questions about retired players and their part in the discussions and agreements. But without actually seeing a copy of the current (2006) Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), it’s hard to discuss much when you don’t know what’s in it.

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So – here’s a copy of the entire 361-page CBA that was officially adopted on March 8, 2006 and was set to expire in 2012. We’ve posted on the entire contract on Scribd for easier access and viewing. (Click on the FULL SCREEN button to enlarge it for easier navigation – hit the ESC key to close. You can also click the DOWNLOAD button to save a PDF copy for printing and reading.) The League and its owners recently decided to walk away from the agreement in advance of a new contract, leaving the possibility of an uncapped year in 2011 and a looming lockout. continue reading »

Conrad Dobler still loves to stir things up once in a while, even after dozens of knee surgeries. He recently went on the road to promote his latest book, Pride and Perseverance, and while at a pre-Super Bowl press conference in Miami, he let loose with some comments about Saints’ quarterback Drew Brees. No one expected the amount of coverage – good and bad – that his comments would receive.  But to paraphrase P.T. Barnum, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity – just be sure to spell my name right!” Over the past year, Brees had made some broad disparaging comments about the general condition of retired players’ lives and why they were having the problems after their retirement from the game.

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One of the more common questions coming in from recently retired players (the last 10 – 15 years) has been about severance pay. In our last post, both Lionel James and Burt Grossman mentioned that they weren’t even aware of any severance pay clauses. Irv Cross sent in a response through the Comments and we decided to put it up as a general post so it would be more visible to everyone. Thanks, Irv!

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This is going to be the shortest post that we have ever featured here on DavePear.com. By now, you all must have heard that the NFL has just hired former NFLPA President Troy Vincent who served with Gene Upshaw, deceased Executive Director of the Union.

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A lot of retired players and fans write from time to time to ask if there’s a simple flowchart of the pecking order in the NFL. This is the simplest one we could find that we know everyone will understand:

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It’s another Monday, one week after Super Bowl Sunday. Some current news items of note as well as a couple of reminders on some events and dates that are coming up.

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ESPN is sponsoring an independent study on NFL retired players’ pain and pain management issues. This study will be conducted by Dr. Linda Cottler from Washington University in St. Louis through phone interviews. They’ve assured everyone that participants and personal details will be kept completely anonymous. (Click on the letter to enlarge for easier reading.)

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Remember this one? When some of the rhetoric first started coming out about the NFL’s revenue-sharing with the NFLPA and the players, Commissioner Roger Goodell’s standard answer was that those generous owners were handing over almost 60% of their revenues to those greedy players. Recently, the League has been demanding a 20% reduction in salaries as well as no salary cap on the top end of rookies’ and older players’ contracts. And now it’s also becoming clear that the NFL’s idea of 60% has never really been 60% of gross but some convoluted accounting that ends up actually being closer to 52%. The League’s PR flaks and shills (aka attack dogs) have been trying to spin out the idea that the NFLPA needs to open their books even as they continue to dodge calls for an audit of their own numbers. We believe that transparency is needed from both sides of the fence but right now the fact that the NFLPA has to file annual LM-2′s with the Dept. of Labor makes the Union more open than 31 of the 32 teams in disclosure (the Green Bay Packers are the only publicly-owned team and therefore required to open their books annually). As common sense goes, the NFLPA’s numbers will never be completely accurate if the NFL hasn’t actually been paying its real share all these years.

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A lot of you out there probably still remember Gay Culverhouse’s passionate testimony in front of Congress last October. (You can read her testimony by clicking HERE.) During the time Gay Culverhouse was President of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, she witnessed firsthand many of the things that teams and team doctors do in treating their employees: the players. Dr. Culverhouse has been taking up the cause for retired players’ rights in their generally next-to-impossible process to apply for disability and pension benefits. After she began to realize the scope of this problem, Dr. Culverhouse recently started a new nonprofit organization – Gay Culverhouse Players’ Outreach Program – to provide assistance to any and all players who either need assistance in applying for their benefits or who have been turned down for benefits. (Click HERE to access their website.)

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(or How They have been Used to Cheat You)

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We have now established that both the NFL and the NFLPA have been using fake “Experts” to trick Fans, Active Players, the Media, Congress, the Courts and Us. They have reached determinations and given testimony on Retired Player rights and benefits that were nothing more than shams in too many cases.

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In our last post – Valerie Thomas: Life Under Upshaw – former NFLPA Research Analyst and Paralegal Valerie Thomas discussed her years of abuse and violation of her employee’s rights under the heavy hand of departed Executive Director Gene Upshaw and his inner circle. Bob Grant had posted several questions to her in the comments section about the toll from her long battle with the NFLPA and how it has affected her and her family over the years. This is Part 2 of Valerie Thomas’ story.

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Valerie Thomas

Dave,

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Thank you for your earlier comment and for allowing me to be an active participant on your blog.

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It’s hard to accept that a union whose efforts that you supported, including financially, would turn against you in your time of need: your  post-football career.

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I know first-hand what it feels like to be ignored and it is even more dehumanizing to have been ignored while looking in the faces of the perpetrators on a daily basis. For example, my basic needs and rights to have access to my job were denied. When I reported to work, I was locked out with no key to get in the front door and no key to access the elevator. Once on the elevator, I couldn’t get off on the floor where I worked. Instead, I could only get off on the floor below mine and had to walk up a public stairwell. During the mornings, when I had to do business on other floors I had to walk up and down the public stairwells. I could not use the elevator like everyone else, including interns and temporary employees. At lunchtime and upon my return from lunch, I had to go through the same routine with no access to my floor and walk up a public stairwell (two sets of 12 stairs = 24 steps each way). In the afternoons, if I had to do business on other floors, I had to walk up and down the public stairwells. NFLPA management and its legal representatives harassed, intimidated and retaliated against me; they dared me to protect my rights and when I did, they then cheated and stole my livelihood and my family’s legacy.

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