Dave Pear's Blog

With the lead-up to Super Bowl and daily press conferences filled with posturing on both sides, some real news came out from NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith this afternoon regarding The Groom Law Group – THEY’RE FIRED! After years of being on the inside working both sides of the fence and writing one of the worst disability and pension plans in any industry, someone finally took notice and did what should have been done years ago.

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For years, Bernie Parrish has been pointing out the deep conflicts of interest where The Groom Law Group has placed itself: They worked for the NFL, they worked for the NFLPA AND they wrote the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Players Retirement Plan. We’ve written a lot about this on our blog – including several pieces from Bernie – covering my personal experiences with trying to apply for my disability benefits under Groom Law Group’s ridiculous rules. And my personal experiences are atypical of the way most retired players are treated when they apply for their rightful benefits. Groom Law Group has taken millions from all sides to the detriment of the retired players – they collected nearly $600,000 from the NFLPA alone in 2008 according to the PA’s LM-2 on file. (Look at the Related Posts below this post or just click HERE to see what a search brings up for Groom Law Group on our blog).

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I can only hope that this will be the start of real change in the way retired players are treated and looked upon by its own Union. And perhaps it may not be too much to hope that retired players will finally be given an opportunity to participate and shape their own futures.

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After a crazy 2009 (like the rest of us), Conrad Dobler has still managed to hit the media trail and come out swinging before Super Bowl. After 32 surgeries, Conrad nearly lost his leg late last year to a massive MRSA infection. (You can read that earlier post – click HERE.) But Conrad’s back and he’s been lighting into the NFL and the NFLPA in a couple of recent interviews. Conrad comes from old school football when characters were actually welcome. And he played the part well. Ask any older fan and most of them will still speak of Conrad fondly, regardless of whether they loved or hated him on the field. In today’s world of football, The Commissioner is now all too happy to act like the nasty teacher with the ruler trying to keep the students in line for his headmaster owners. All you have to do is look at Chad Ochocinco’s escalating fines to match his on-field antics to bring some levity to the game. Those owners don’t really want the fans to identify with any players on the field (other than those multimillionaire quarterback stars that they completely control) because it  would give them faces off the field and into retirement. Consider this a salute to Conrad Dobler for still being who he is!

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Conrad’s still got his wry sense of humor and even manages to get his licks in on Saints’ quarterback, Drew Brees, in his interview with CBS Sports’ Mike Freeman:

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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.

• Electronic Arts Inc. Pg. 48 Amount $29,873,436.00 (WOW! here we go again – EA paid royalties for 2008 that totaled MORE than what the entire settlement was for the Players Inc. lawsuit, folks!) (Question: Just how many retired players have current GLA agreements for Players Inc. now? Or perhaps we should say, “How few?”)
• NFL Ventures: Sports Organizations Pg. 56 Amount $41,513,624.00 (Please explain)
• Don Russ Playoff Inc. (Licensee): pg. 59 $6,715,129.00
• Octagon Football: pg. 779 Amount: $411,929.00 (What is Octagon Football?)
• Super Bowl Game (tickets?) pg 789 Amount: $289,800.00 ( Who were these tickets for?)
• Washington Redskins: Pg. 794 Amount $141,929.00 ( What is this for?)
• NFL Coaches Assoc. (Group licensing) Pg. 776 Amount $500,000.00 (Does the NFLPA also represent NFL coaches now?)
• NFL Management Council Pg. 777 Amount $221,774.00 (What could this be for?)
• Weil, Gotshal & Manages: (Attorney fees) : Pg. 794 Amount $628,646.00 (What services did they provide?)
• NFL Experience (tickets) Pg. 777 Amount $8,033.00 (Even more tickets? Heck – between all the free tickets given to the NFLPA, the Alumni AND the NFL, no wonder paid tickets cost so damn much!)
• Dewey, Leboef: (Attorney fees) Pg. 756 Amount $8,146,976 (Was this all for the Players Inc. debacle?)
• Groom Law Group (Attorney fees) Pg. 762 Amount $586,355.00 (Which part of the disability debacle is this for?)
• The Fairmont Kea Lani Maui: Pg. 798 Amount $1,369, 082.00 Nothing but the best for the NFLPA Leadership. (Guess this must this include room service?)
• The Nanny Connection (again): Hawaii: child care provider 2008 NFLPA board meeting pg. 801 Amount $7,112.00 (How many children were each NFLPA leader allowed to bring?)
• NFLPA Board Meeting (United Airlines) Pg. 805 Amount $322,399,00 (These were first class seats? Just exactly how many people do they have?)
• Ritz- Carlton Hotel: Puerto Rico NFLPA Retired Players 2008 convention Pg. 803 Amount $227,040,00 (Steering Committee: Where’s the next meeting?)
• Gaguas, Puerto Rico: NFLPA Retired players 2008 convention Pg. 799 Amount $28,255.00 (Is this another child care expense or…?)
• Retired Chapters Officers Meeting Pg. 799 Amount $52,806.00 (Where did this important meeting take place? We KNOW we didn’t spend this much to put on our entire Summit!)

Find any other juicy LM-2 goodies that we need to point out? Drop us a line!

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We’re still spending some time poring over that 2007 LM-2 filing from the NFLPA and, like everything else they do – there’s always surprises tucked into every corner. The LM-2 as close as we can get to audit-type numbers as we can find right now. We spent a lot of time trying to locate and download that document from the Dept. of Labor’s website (click HERE read that earlier post) and eventually, a friend in the media pointed us in the right direction. But before we finally discovered where to find it, we actually went ahead and placed an online order for a printed copy of the document to be sent out by US mail. Of course, we had no idea the thing would be well over 800 pages long at a cost of 15¢ a page! So we were somewhat relieved (it would have cost us well over $120 for one complete copy!) but also perplexed when we got this message back yesterday from the US Dept. of Labor (click image to enlarge for reading):

Several people had already warned us that the Dept. of Labor always seemed to be uncooperative when it came to the NFLPA. This kind of cryptic answer would make any conspiracy theorist jump for joy. So are they trying to tell us that the NFLPA no longer exists or doesn’t have a presence in their system or…? Or is the stuff so intentionally buried that no one should be able to find it? If anyone can enlighten us, we’d sure appreciate it.

Anyway, with Super Bowl coming up this Sunday, we thought we’d highlight a few of the more interesting expenses listed in 2007′s LM-2, some of which were Super Bowl-related. What the NFLPA spends on the Super Bowl could support a lot of retired players for a couple of years. (We’re hoping to have the entire document available online for viewing early next week.)

• LimoLink was paid $29,589 for “Super Bowl Transportation”;
• Grand Wailea Resort in Maui was paid $1,138,884 in advance (?) for 2008 NFLPA Board Meeting;
• United Airlines was paid $273,781 for plane tickets for the 2007 NFLPA Board Meeting (do you think any of them flew economy class?);
• Continental Airlines was paid $80,459 for plane tickets for the 2007 NFLPA Board Meeting;
• The Intercontinental Hotel was paid a total of $288,486.

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