Web Letters: High Impact: What Football Owes Its Players

Interesting perspective--I do feel that the attacks by Ditka and some of his allies might an attempt to take down the NFLPA and, more specifically, Gene Upshaw. However, I take issue with the statements that the NFLPA has improved benefits for retired players since Upshaw was in office--whatever percentage increases retired players have received mean little since the benefits were so pitiful to begin with. While there may be increases, they really mean very little when one looks at how little retirement benefits for many older players were to begin with.

Gene Upshaw's performance as NFLPA head is, to me, questionable at best--current players do not receive guaranteed contracts, which means they can be cut at any time management deems they no longer want them. However, whenever a player outplays his contract and wants to renegotiate, he is not able to because "He signed a contract." It makes no sense that a team can cut a player whenever it feels he is not worth the contract both parties signed, but someone like Deion Branch, who eventually received a contract for between $36-to-39 million, had to fight tooth and nail to get what the fair market would give him because "He was under contract" while his new team can cut him whenever it feels he is no longer worth the contract he signed. Teams basically can run over most players under this system, and cheap teams like the Eagles, Bears and Patriots do it all the time.

Having said this, the owners are getting a pass from Ditka and his allies to some degree, it seems to me--it is also curious that the NFL network allowed Rich Eisen and his team to be participate in Jerry Kramer's Gridion Greats auction, which was done to help retired players who are not getting help they need from the NFL or NFLPA. I think the NFL, not just the NFLPA, needs to help people like Brian Demarco before Congress, civil courts, or both, make them. This looks terrible from a PR standpoint--it is only a matter of time until they pay up, one way or another. What Brian Demarco and his family have gone through is disgraceful--it makes the NFL and the NFLPA look horrible, and they are setting a poor example for the youth of America they claim to want to have a positive impact on.

Peter Wells

Atlanta, GA

Retired, damaged players are one thing...of course they deserve help, and if Zirin's essay is correct, the union has significantly improved the level of assistance in the past several years.

What's even more disturbing to me, and reflective of the NFL's dark side, are the current players who are intimidated into returning to an active game, after they've received a concussion during play in that same game. The coaches and owners may say that the players want to go back in...it's central to the ethos of professional football to be a tough mofo, even if you're seriously hurt.

I think a player who's still conscious and self-aware, who knows his bell's been rung big-time, who's been told he probably suffered a concussion on that last play, would rather sit out the remainder of the game in the interest of his health (and perhaps his life) than be forced to go back in. I think he goes back in because he knows the coach is hovering, and his job is on the line if he "wimps out."

As much as I love to watch football, I think this particular form of coercion is over the line, and should be stopped. A clear demarcation when it comes to concussion should be enforced throughout the league...if concussion is suspected, let alone diagnosed on the sideline, the player should be permitted to sit down, period.

Unless the NFL might enjoy further comparison to Caligula's gladiators, who usually fought to a gruesome death, and whose "union benefits" consisted of the slaves who dragged their maimed or lifeless bodies off the field of battle, the new NFL commissioner, in league with his owners, should review the guidelines on concussion and move them into the twenty-first century. No player deserves to be intimidated into early senility or dementia simply to win a game, however much the gambling public may disagree.

Stewart Braunstein

Port Washington , NY