I assume that this announcement firing Groom Law Group means that they are absolutely, completely, totally out of NFLPA business and that they’re not going to be paid a penny more.

De has started work on a few of the planks that he and I first discussed back in May of 2009. Still, there is much, much more that needs to be done because the FOUNDATION set up for Retired Players by the NFL and the NFLPA is rotten and replacing IT is what is needed and is what we as INDEPENDENT ADVOCATES are going to push for until we have a new and solid foundation in place.

The old model set up for Retired Players inside of the NFLPA has to go. It’s obviously too late for many of us because we won’t be among those who live to see Justice and Reform through. “Revolution ain’t pretty.” Hopefully De is a Revolutionary who is truly willing to remain open, as Upshaw never was.

We as Independents are not going to sit back, go to golf tournaments, raise money for everyone but ourselves, tolerate our good men being denied their deserved disability, accept a pension arrangement that is shamefully less than Baseball’s, allow all who have stolen money from us to get away with it and deny a pension to our Brothers who played 1, 2 and 3 years.

One way or another, we’re going to win our fight for Retired Players, be it in the Courts, Congress or the Media.

I hope that the Director will continue with needed changes and that he will also continue including the Independent Leaders in the discussion.

Bob Grant
Independent Activist/Advocate
Parrish Team Member
Retired Baltimore Colts – Washington Redskins

Basically what you’re hearing, Mr. Smith, is TALK IS CHEAP! Until the Bert Bell plan is rewritten so that people who receive retirement can also be compensated for serious head injuries and other disabilities… it is as Dave & Bernie and countless others have said: An illegal farce. The fact that “conflict of interest” agents have sat on the board too for many years and voted NO countless times is astounding. Fewer claims granted, less dollars to fund the plan, ergo more dollars for active players who pay a fee to the agent and more dollars saved for the owners’ pockets to swell.

Two years ago, I woke up with numb hands and was found by the top neurosurgeon in Seattle to have a spinal cord compressed to less than half its channel. After they drilled out the discs between C3-4-5 and fused them with titanium (to go with two others they discovered had been “autofused” by football), my disability claim WAS NOT EVEN CONSIDERED ON ITS MERITS by the board. The reason? The plan (as written by Groom Law Group and at the direction of the NFL & NFLPA) states that 15 years after playing, if you are receiving the meager NFL pension YOU CAN’T RECEIVE DISABILITY PERIOD! I’ve taken that to several of the top legal minds in the Northwest and they just shake their heads.

Every doctor who has treated us knows that most of the aging NFL veterans with serious injuries will become disabled in later life, so that is precisely why the plan was written to preclude us from receiving disability for the injuries we received building the League. Another word for that is spelled G-R-E-E-D!

So, Mr. Smith, understand why ONLY YOUR ACTIONS and those of the OWNERS will change our minds. We are waiting (as we have been for several decades)… and we are working with our own attorneys and political representatives.

The stench that is the making of NFL owners along with the historical participation by the NFLPA under Upshaw, et al is finally coming to light. Read the tea leaves, NFL owners. The bill that has been due for many years WILL BE PAID and a prudent strategy would be to get in front of this with a global settlement of what is owed us from the past (all claims) and a reasonable and fair re-worked Bert Bell Plan.

Don’t believe it? Call the CEO’s of big tobacco and see how their screw job turned out.

Bruce Jarvis
Buffalo Bills
1971 – 1974

Cody C. Jones
Los Angeles Rams
1974 – 1982

De’s habit is tell them whatever they want to hear but do nothing; same result as Upshaw, just done with less outward hostility. To date, De Smith has given us no reason to trust him. Quite the contrary. De Smith enticed our Rhodes Scholar lawyer, Ron Katz, and Class Representative Adderley into their attempted $300+ million sellout of our retired players’ rights to sue EA, Madden and 90+ other licensees who are still in collusion with the NFLPA cheating retired players every day.

De Smith’s requests to audit the owners books are as phony as Upshaw’s repeated “demands”. I still find it hard to believe that De Smith – a white collar criminal defense expert no less – is so stupid he’s overlooked the owners legal faux pas from a few months back involving Green Bay.

I still see De Smith as no better than Gene Upshaw who was in collusion with the owners.

Bernie Parrish

• The Bell/Rozelle disability plan is illegal and violates ERISA Law;

• This NFL disability plan has caused untold pain and suffering to so many retired players and their families;

• The current disability plan CANNOT be fixed! It needs to be rewritten from start to finish;

• The NFL disability plan must be unique to our industry and allow disabled players access to their benefits;

• The NFL does not acknowledge serious physical injuries such as broken necks, backs, knees, hips, shoulders and the list goes on;

• NFL Quack Dr. NO Ira Casson has been exposed as a fraud! It is undeniable that repeated blows to the head cause brain damage.

Regards,
Dave & Heidi Pear
Pro Bowl 1979
Super Bowl XV
Social Security Disability 2004

As a nobody in the NFL but a very vocal skeptic of Smith (I have fired off letters to Senators and posted my thoughts on him on Dave’s web), I must say he is a man of his word. He called me yesterday as he stood in line at the airport, to give me an update on his plan. I can honestly say he is pursuing everything he said he would.

I told De yesterday that I am All In if he does what he says he’s going to do. We all know there’s a lot of work to correct the ruins he was left with but it looks like he’s going after it.

George Visger
San Francisco 49′ers 1980 & 1981
Survivor of 9 football-related brain surgeries
Winner of Workers Comp claim vs 49′ers