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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Irv Cross explained how that Severance Pay is calculated according to the CBA since 1993 – click HERE to read his earlier post discussing these rules.

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Anyway, here’s Burt’s story about his missing $40,000:

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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 »

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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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What we can’t figure out is why players are so uninformed – or misinformed – about their benefits and pay? In my own inquiries about disability and pension benefits, I’ve had the phone hung up on me by people I was sent to at the NFLPA and I even ended up talking to the League’s attorney, Larry Lamade, over at Akin Gump when my own Union couldn’t provide me with a current copy of the retirement plan. And now former Bucs’ President Gay Culverhouse has set up an advocacy program, Players Outreach, to provide some missing guidance through this maze that our paid Union people should have been providing all this time.

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Burt:

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First item is one final reminder to get your paperwork sent in to Garden City Group to claim your piece of the GLA settlement lawsuit. If your name is on the list and you don’t have your paperwork, you’ll need to call them immediately (866) 697-5552 and leave a message with your number – they will get back to you quickly. Have them fax it to you so you can get that paperwork postmarked no later than Feb. 9, 2010 to qualify for your first of two checks. Click on the GLA Settlement News link on the right side of this blog to find the information and phone numbers that you need.

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And for those who have already received your checks, Bernie Parrish can now accept credit card donations for his next litigation fund. Click HERE.

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Over Super Bowl weekend, we also quietly posted a free viewing of the documentary Blood Equity on this site as well as the Football Summit blog. 15-year NFL veteran & 3 time Super Bowl Champion, Roman Phifer produced this film about life after football as most players live it. Click HERE to get to that post so you can watch it in its entirety online! Of course, the producers couldn’t get permission to use any actual NFL footage because of the subject so you won’t see any on-the-field material anywhere in this film.

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NOTE: See if your name is on the list at the end of this post!

Recently, some of the retired players received an announcement from the NFLPA’s offices about another very old settlement fund finally closing on Feb. 18, 2010. Dee Becker from the NFLPA sent out an announcement about this lawsuit that dates back to 1993 – Reggie White et al vs. NFL et al.

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The lawsuit was significant in that it came in the days before free agency and the 1993 CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement). Several players were negotiating to move to different teams when their respective owners intervened behind the scenes in an effort to keep them from negotiating with other team owners. Imagine something like that happening today: Brett Favre wants to leave the Green Bay Packers and his agent starts discussions with the Minnesota Vikings. So the owner of the Packers just picks up the phone and calls the owner of the Vikings to dissuade him from doing so. The Packers get to keep Favre’s contract and then make Favre a low-ball offer or simply kick him to the curb with no place to go. And that’s the antitrust game in a nutshell. Unrestricted Free Agency and the CBA have become an integral part of players’ contracts today as a result of battles like Reggie White’s lawsuit. Unfortunately, it also allowed former NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw to pervert the process by negotiating the CBA for the full benefit of the active players while completely neglecting – and stealing from – the retired players. It was all about the money. Of course, it also meant that Superagents like Tom Condon (who just happened to have been sitting on the Disability Board for years and long rumored to have been the real power behind Upshaw’s throne) would get increasingly bigger pieces of those ridiculously sky-high salaries and bonuses that they’ve been negotiating for untested new rookies coming in every year since.

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Wow! Is it just us or did January whiz right by and now we’re already heading into February and the Superbowl? Here’s a roundup of some items to close off the month.

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Next Congressional Hearing in Houston Feb. 1st

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This piece just arrived from The Boston Globe’s Ron Borges. Mixed in between the lines on the great news about a quarterback- Tom Brady – finally breaking ranks with his counterparts is another completely separate story: It’s one of the best outlines detailing some of the sordid history of side deals that set the stage for the upcoming lockout. You couldn’t make this stuff up!

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After reading this piece, if you don’t get a real understanding of the long-term pattern of divisive tactics that the League has used to keep all the players in a contentious position with each other, you’re living on Mars. Ron Borges provides a remarkable insight into the real business of football.

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Tom Brady adds star power to off-field negotiations

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Valerie Thomas

Valerie Thomas writes a great analysis on the StarCaps case and how it relates to the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) and Congress. The NFL and its owners would love to have its powers expanded stealthily by trying to pull a fast one on Congress. We hope someone calls them on it before it happens!

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The NFL is trying to get Congress to sanction the CBA-negotiated right to be prosecutor, defense, judge AND jury! Commissioner Roger Goodell advocates “narrow and specific legislation that would confirm the primacy of Federal labor law and to respect agreements on this important subject.”

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Roger the Hutt and Princess Jane (click to enlarge)

Now that the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) has taken center stage in the negotiations between the NFL and NFLPA, it’s getting down and dirty between the owners and the players and the war of words is heating up between NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith. And naturally, the old divide-and-conquer approach that worked in the past is getting rolled out again in an attempt to pit active and retired players on opposite sides of the fence by making “offerings of peace.”

So recently, the NFL announced its new Spinal Treatment Program (read about that in an earlier post HERE) to add to last year’s phenomenally successful – albeit relatively unused – Hip Replacement Program from which Dave received a whopping $517.63 for over $100,000 of surgery and rehab! (Dave’s going in for more spine surgery next month.) Roger must have been inspired by his short-lived Revival Meetings with retired players to listen to what was most important to retired players (Duh! Like no one knew!).

Some days, you can relate this whole saga to the long-running Star Wars series of Good against Evil and the rebellious Jedi warriors against the ominous Empire: an unlikely band of retired players going up against the money and power of a corrupt and overwhelming group of owners and old guard bent on destroying them. Boy – can we have a field day with this one! So for a quiet Friday, we present Roger the Hutt and his captive – or captivating – Princess Jane, conspiring on how to divide the insurgent rebels (with apologies to Jabba the Hutt and George Lucas). Who would you choose for which roles?

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With The Retired Football Players Summit now over, we can get back to some recent news.

This weekend, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith was quoted as saying, “I don’t represent active players. I don’t represent retired players. I represent all NFL players. We are one team.” And then in the next press release as shown on the NFLPA site (click HERE to read it if they don’t take it down asap). (Or click on the screen capture below that we clipped today for posterity.)

This starts to get really interesting now. DeMaurice Smith is now publicly stating that he represents ALL players and not just the active players. It’s a huge jump from Gene Upshaw’s comments on how he really felt about the retired players and dog food. But recently, we also pointed out something Bernie Parrish has been trying to get across for a couple of years now: “Retired member have NO voting rights and CANNOT be members of the collective bargaining unit as certified by the NLRB” (National Labor Relations Board) (our emphasis). (Read that post – click HERE.)

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As most of you now know, Bernie Parrish played a key role in the successful players’ litigation against the NFLPA and Players Inc. in San Francisco. Around the same time, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced what appeared to be a groundbreaking tour to NFL host cities to hear about what the retired players truly want to see happen for them. Unfortunately, as we soon discovered, it’s been nothing more than a transparent PR scam to generate the illusion that they’re actually doing something. While Goodell shows up dragging along his personal entourage that includes the like of Harold Henderson (general counsel) and the NFL PR flaks, the players themselves are told that they can’t bring anyone to the meetings. No counsel, no doctors, not even caregivers or spouses. So disability experts like John Hogan were not even allowed to attend that first meeting in Dallas (he was uninvited by the likes of Harold Henderson AFTER he was invited and flew there at his own expense). (Click HERE and HERE and HERE to read about that first meeting and the fallout after.) And it goes on. The second meeting in Chicago was even worse; it was announced with short notice, few retired players showed up and their stories were all the same. And oh yes – no one was allowed into the “meeting” except retired players.

Now there’s another meeting scheduled for Baltimore on December 11th at 6:30 at the Doubletree Hotel. And yep – absolutely no one allowed to attend except retired players. So if you’re a retired player – dead or alive – you’re invited to show up and speak your mind!

Bernie’s been circulating a list of REAL issues that everyone would like to see the Commissioner address. We’re posting Bernie’s points ahead of the meeting in the hopes that some of the retired players might have time to print them out and take them along to that meeting. And the next one. And the next one after that…

Subject: What retired players want.

Guys: I sent this to you a couple months or ago and I sent it to many congressional staffers, Representatives, and Senators. I am about to send it again so if you have anything to add or change let me know. If I haven’t expressed our thoughts in a way you agree with let me or the Congressional staff members know.

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