Dave Pear's Blog

Someone once said not long ago that George Martin’s ascension to the Executive Directorship of the NFL Alumni was the perfect example of the American Dream. In reality, honesty and integrity will always get you where you need to go in following the real American Dream. The old adage, “The people you pass on the way up the ladder will be the same people you run into on the way down” should hold true here.
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We also want to ask Commissioner Goodell if he plans to hold George Martin and Ron George to the same high standard of full accountability that he imposed on the New Orleans Saints players during his bounty investigation? In the real game of life, there is no room for double standards, Mr. Commissioner. But in real life, it’s not going to be game suspensions. People’s lives have been totally disrupted or even destroyed as a consequence of George Martin’s actions – or inactions. Spending money like a drunken sailor – particularly when it’s not yours to spend – is a recipe for disaster. We wonder if brain damage is now going to be the excuse?
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Here’s the story from A.J. Perez FOX Sports:
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Ex-Giant Martin resigns as NFLAA boss

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The Super Bowl show is now in full swing and today, George Martin and the NFL Alumni Board showed up for a full-court press conference to show unity behind their beloved leader. FOX Sports was in attendance and A.J. Perez covered it (comic book version at the bottom of the post) :
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NFL alumni board defends director

by A.J. Perez
Feb. 2, 2012
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Members of the NFL Alumni Association board of directors voiced their support for executive director George Martin at a news conference Thursday, a week after a FOXSports.com report revealed possible mismanagement of the financially strapped organization.
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“People can write whatever they want to write,” said Harry Carson, a former teammate of Martin’s on the New York Giants who pushed vigorously for Martin’s appointment in 2009. “You see all the individuals sitting here. We are backing this man 150 percent. We are his teammates and we are doing everything that we can to help our team, the retired players community, be successful.”
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FOXSports.com reported that the NFL Alumni Association — which began to advocate for retired players in conjunction with Martin’s hiring — has slid deeper into financial disarray and has been propped up by NFL loans totaling more than $4 million over the past two years. Martin also funneled contracts to family members, according to the report, and the charity he founded received free Super Bowl tickets.
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Five board members spoke on Martin’s behalf when asked about the report during the news conference. Afterward, one of the board members, former Baltimore Colts running back Tom Nowatzke, told FOXSports.com that the NFLAA ethics board addressed one of the conflict-of-interest claims made in the article: Martin’s use of his wife and daughter-in-law’s catering firm.
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NFLPA 2012 Florida Convention

The NFLPA just announced their 2012 convention to be held once again at the Marco Island Marriott in Florida next March. Retired players are also invited to actually mingle with active players for $250 a night! Lots of golf, fine dining and everything else… except talking about the real issues that retired players actually need to have addressed.
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So with all the lawyers that work over at the NFLPA, it seems that the only thing that gets their attention is another good lawsuit. Today, the attorneys in the earlier Eller suit – Hausfeld LLP, Zelle Hofmann, Arthur N. Bailey & Associates, Coburn & Greenbaum – filed another class action suit on behalf of retired players against the NFLPA, DeMaurice Smith, Tom Brady and Mike Vrabel. The new suit includes a new list of players – Dave is included as one of the named plaintiffs – along with an additional list of key issues that the PA will need to address.
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We’ve uploaded a copy of the new 44-page Lawsuit to Scribd for easy viewing and to make it downloadable for printing. You can also click the Enlarge icon in the center of the menu at the bottom of the viewing screen to go Full Screen for easier reading (and just hit the ESC key to close):
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Gault McElhenney Brown Et Al v NFLPA
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The peasants are now at the gate

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In any revolution, it’s always interesting to hear comments coming in from both sides of the fence. In the case of NFLPA and the retired player community at large, the battle lines could almost be drawn as a battle between the Haves vs. the Have-Nots. The royalty are holed up in their ivory tower enjoying the privileges that any inside clique always seem to enjoy, oblivious to the starving peasants outside the palace walls. Even with the growing voices of thousands of their fellow retired players getting louder by the day, there are still those in denial.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Dave has still been included in this ongoing local (Seattle) e-mail chain from yesterday as he’s still a dues-paying member of the NFLPA. We’re posting these four latest e-mail exchanges here in unedited format for viewing and we’re also posting a separate rebuttal in a second post (click HERE).
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From: Harrison, Nolan [mailto:Nolan.HarrisonIII@nflplayers.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2011 1:35 PM
Subject: RE: Former Player’s Benefit Increase?
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There will be an official benefits statement coming from both parties. A couple of things that were accidentally left out of the CBA summary (sorry, everyone is rushing to meet the memberships demand for information) was the improvements to Plan 88 more on workers comp and long term care.
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Over the weekend, the retired players and the attorneys involved with the Eller et al vs. NFL et al class action lawsuit released a letter addressed to all retirees to outline a call for unity as well as to provide an update on the facts and actions to date.
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Dear fellow retired players,
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We have been asked by many of our fellow retired National Football League (“NFL”) players to provide more information about what the Eller v. NFL lawsuit is meant to accomplish and how the lawsuit will help benefit all retired NFL players. What follows is our attempt to do so.
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On March 28, 2011 the national law firms of Zelle Hofmann Voelbel & Mason LLP and Hausfeld, LLP, filed a class action on behalf of all retired NFL players against the NFL in federal court in the District of Minnesota to bring about wholesale improvements of the NFL player retirement system.
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This lawsuit came after the CBA negotiations between the NFL and NFLPA broke down, the Union decertified and the League subsequently locked the players out. The complaint seeks to do for retired players what the Reggie White class action lawsuit did for current players in the early 1990’s: create an organization and system whereby retired NFL players are able to advocate on their own behalf and therefore vastly improve the current landscape of the NFL retirement system. This class action – known as Eller et al., v. NFL – was consolidated with the class action on behalf of current players called Brady, et al vs. NFL. (Consolidated simply means that the cases are heard together and the NFL is better positioned to try and resolve both cases simultaneously – although the retired players are asking for and addressing different issues than the current players.)
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Recently, the largest collective group of representatives of various organizations for retired players or who have mass online audience met in Minneapolis. The group included representatives and/or members from the NFLPA, NFL Alumni, the Retired Players Association, Fourth & Goal, Gridiron Greats, Dignity after Football and DavePear.com/Independent Football Veterans. Most of the participants agreed to present the League with united proposals for changes in key areas affecting the well-being of retired players:

• (a)    pensions;
• (b)   disability benefits;
• (c)    medical benefits;
• (d)   medical monitoring; and
• (e)    vesting calculations.

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On April 4th, representatives of the National Football League acknowledged the need to provide “important improvements in retired player benefits.” They stated it was the “fair” and “right” thing to do in “respect” and “recognition” of their contributions to the game. The League said the retirees “voice” needs to be heard.
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On May 25th, the largest collective group of representatives of retired NFL Players ever assembled met a second time to reach a consensus on a series of united proposals for these needed improvements.
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The League has said that everyone needs to “focus on negotiations” because “there is a deal to be made.” We agree. The retirees therefore unanimously agreed to submit to the League a detailed framework for changes in retiree pensions, medical coverage and benefits, and disability programs. The framework will also include a component of medical monitoring for retirees that is designed to detect or prevent illness or disease at its earliest stages and provide for timely treatment.
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The retirees invite the League to be available for meetings beginning as early as Tuesday, May 31, to discuss this framework, exchange ideas and comments, and be best prepared to reach resolution when mediation formally resumes on June 7th and 8th in Minneapolis.
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As expressed in the April 4th letter from the League to the retirees, the League wished to hear the “voice” of the retirees. We are speaking. It’s now time for the League to listen.
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Any questions concerning this press release should be directed to Michael Hausfeld at Hausfeld LLP (202) 540-7200 or Daniel Mason, Mark Feinberg, or Shawn D. Stuckey at Zelle Hofmann Voelbel & Mason (612) 336-9100.
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Retired NFL Players’ Representatives’ Unite!
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The largest collective group of representatives for retired NFL players ever assembled met yesterday in Minneapolis, Minnesota and agreed to unanimously support the class action litigation brought by retired NFL players against the League and its member clubs. That lawsuit is now pending before Judge Susan Nelson in federal court in Minneapolis.
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Among those present were:
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Over the past 24 hours, we’ve certainly had a lot of discussions around the old adage “Not seeing the forest for the trees.” In the old way of controlling their spin on all stories about football, the NFL managed to keep all of the television networks and most of the major print media on very short leashes because of their broadcast rights and access to players and managers for interviews. And then the Internet came along. Despite claims of a few who proudly proclaim they invented the Internet and Facebook, this new medium has not only moved the retired football players battle to a new and level playing field; it’s in a different league altogether. Just as the past two weeks have completely caught Tiger Woods and his team of old-school PR flacks like deer in the headlights, the NFLPA and the NFL and their old media machines have been hard-pressed to catch up with a new medium that they can no longer control. The Internet doesn’t belong to anyone and it belongs to everyone.

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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!

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One of the presentations that drew a lot of attention during The Summit was from Bruce Laird of Fourth and Goal. Fourth and Goal has been in ongoing discussions with the NFL to use the NFL Alumni organization as a possible platform for advocacy of disability and pension reform. At the conclusion of The Summit, the group voted to continue moving forward without embracing any single organization at this early stage while encouraging and supporting all organizations that will advance retired players’ issues. (You can look at the evolving Summit blog by clicking HERE and you’ll find Bruce Laird’s presentation under the PowerPoints tab – or click HERE.)

Bernie Parrish has already voiced some of his strong opinions in no uncertain terms (HERE and HERE) and this is definitely going to make it a very hot summer topic. There’s no middle ground or gray area on this one. Do the retired players embrace an existing organization that has been looked on as another business-as-usual club for elite members or will they be embracing an organization that’s been reborn into something that can actually serve the membership at large with complete transparency and representation for each and every one of its members? Only time will tell and everyone’s watching closely.

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We’ve been asked many times over the past few weeks about the status of the Independent Summit for NFL Retired Players. It can now be announced that it will take place in Las Vegas on May 28 – 31. Those involved in helping to organize this effort to get all of us together as an Independent Group of NFL Retired Players include me, Tony Davis, Joe DeLamielleure, Dave Pear, Disability Attorney John Hogan, Jeff Nixon, Ben Lynch, Marvin Cobb, Bob Grant, Abner Haynes and Bruce Laird. There are a lot more NFL Retired Players who have assisted in multiple ways with this effort and too many to mention in this announcement. Many of these men have helped by consulting with us. We communicate almost daily and are working to make sure that this event will provide a new direction for NFL Retired Players. What also must be mentioned is that others have been asked to be a part of the organizational process but have chosen not to participate.

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Some people think they have to join in the conversation even when they have no idea what they’re talking about. (Or maybe we can chalk it up to reporters looking to stir things up on a slow day.) In today’s press coverage leading up to Super Bowl Sunday, the Saints’ Drew Brees was quoted in USA Today as saying, “There’s some guys out there that have made bad business decisions,” he said.” They took their pensions early because they never went out and got a job. They’ve had a couple divorces and they’re making payments to this place and that place. And that’s why they don’t have money. And they’re coming to us to basically say, ‘Please make up for my bad judgment.’” Read the rest of the piece in USA Today by clicking HERE.

In fact, here’s an interesting question to ponder: What would probably happen if Drew Brees got permanently disabled and had to go in front of the NFLPA Disability Board for a disability benefits review? Would his agent, Tom Condon – who also happens to sit on the Board (!) – still be on his side? Or would he find a way to disqualify him like most everyone else who’s come up in front of the Review Board? Just remember one thing: The people you step on going up the ladder of success may end up being the very people you need help from on the way back down.

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Bob Grant ventured out to Commissioner Goodell’s Players meeting last Wednesday in Newport Beach, California. Among other things that happened at this meeting was the fact that spouses were quietly allowed to attend and speak. Here’s Bob’s report:

Dear Fellas and Supporters,

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CNBC’s Darren Rovell just posted a list of the Top 10 Retired Football Players payments based on public numbers available from the U.S. Dept. of Labor. (Read the article by clicking HERE)

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