Originally Posted by Mutt

the nature of football makes it the worst for having a strong players union to help protect the players - huge rosters, the majority of the players are interchangeable playing 'non skill' positions, there's a huge class of NCAA graduates every year who can take those jobs, football is by far the most violent sport and serious injuries affect most players, easy to be replaced in the draft by somebody who isn't dinged up yet. Hard to have a strong union when 2/3's of it is constantly changing and the superstars of the NFL have never shown they care much about a strong union - an 'i gots mine' attitude. The NFL union has never had a really strong union leader, Gene Upshaw was their leader for decades until his death a year or two ago.

What's most shameful about the NFL is that there are hundreds of ex-NFL'ers from the 60's and 70's who are dealing with major medical conditions directly caused by football and no money or insurance. Today's players and the NFL are making billions and the players union and the NFL owners have done very little for them. There's a group of ex-players like Mike Ditka, Joe Delamieleure fighting hard to shame the bastards into taking care of the guys who helped build the NFL into what it is today.

Like somebody else posted, all the major sports leagues these days do provide seminars about personal finances and all the other perils that come with being a pro athlete making a lot of money. But I guess few listen, the black guys who mostly come from the hood are hard to reach - their homeboys are the only people they listen to, see Michael Vick.

Sad but not really, they have nobody to blame but themselves and they're still young enough to do what the rest of the world who didn't win the genetic athletic lottery has to do - work for a living.