The Silence of our Friends

“Widows and other beneficiaries of vested pre-93 players who died prior to the 2011 CBA being signed are still awaiting word on their Legacy Benefit eligibility. The league has told the NFLPA that it would pay more than half the costs for this widows’ benefit and the union has that proposal under consideration.” – Joe Browne, Senior Advisor to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, in his letter to retired NFL players 

“                                                                                                                                   ”
– DeMaurice Smith, Executive Director, NFLPA

 “                                                                                                                                  ”
– NFLPA Former Players’ Board Members

That’s right – there are no quotes from De Smith or the former players’ board members because they’ve said nothing. I have personally contacted at least 20 NFLPA Former Players’ Chapter Presidents and board members, to inform them of the exclusion of the widows from the Legacy Benefit and to encourage them to speak out in support of the widows – and more importantly, to urge NFLPA officials to act. From the time I first contacted the NFL when the issue first came to light several months ago, the league has remained steadfast in its support of the widows. Moreover, NFL officials have agreed to pay 51% of the estimated $12 million cost to extend the Legacy Benefit to eligible widows (i.e., those whose husbands were vested veterans who retired prior to 1993 and who died prior to August 4, 2011). Yet the union has remained silent.

Here’s another quote for you:

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

The silence of our friends – pretty powerful words from Dr. King.

Clearly it’s going to take a grassroots effort to get the union to act. So I’m urging each one of you to speak out. Contact NFLPA Former Players’ Chapter Presidents and board members and insist that they act on behalf of the widows. Contact the NFLPA leadership and insist that they pitch in the union’s share of the cost to cover the widows. This situation has gone on far too long.

What if it was yourwife who’d been excluded?

Bruce Laird
Vice President, NFLPA Former Players, Baltimore Chapter
Baltimore Colts, 1972-1981
San Diego Chargers, 1982-1983

NFLPA Former Players Board of Directors

Cornelius Bennett
Reggie Berry
Ron Davis
Derrick Frost
Eddie Khayat
Jim McFarland
Erik McMillan
Mickey Washington
Leonard Wheeler

NFLPA Former Players Department

Nolan Harrison, Senior Director
Andre Collins, Director 

Need  contact info? Email baltimorecoltsalumni at msn.com and we'll connect you.

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Money, money, money, money

Recently, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith – and a contingent of union representatives, including former Saints’ and current Browns’ LB Scott Fujita, Saints QB Drew Brees and newly-elected NFLPA President Domonique Foxworth – met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and league officials. Fujita and Brees are members of the NFLPA’s executive committee.

Among the topics discussed was possible disciplinary action against players who participated in the bounty scheme.

Following the meeting, Brees told NFL.com, “We didn’t get any meaningful evidence, or any meaningful truth or facts” regarding the bounties. NFLPA assistant executive director George Atallah, in fact, has described the bounty scandal as an “alleged pay-to-injure scheme.”

It seems that both Brees and Atallah remain skeptical about the existence of a bounty system. Yet the union admitted receiving an audio tape in which coach Gregg Williams is heard explicitly extolling players under his charge to injure certain players on the San Francisco 49ers. Moreover, Williams even identified specific areas of the body (e.g., ACL, head, neck) to target. The NFL’s investigation has resulted in the suspension of Rams’ defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, as well as Saints’ GM Mickey Loomis, head coach Sean Payton, and assistant coach Joe Vitt and probable disciplinary action against 22 to 27 players involved in the bounty system.

Still, the union continues to protect the active players who are believed to have participated in the scheme. In fact, the NFLPA has already retained outside counsel to represent players in any litigation related to bounties. The outside counsel – Richard C. Smith, a partner with Fulbright and Jaworski LLP in Washington, D.C. – was also part of the NFLPA contingent that met with NFL officials last week, as were the union’s General Counsel Richard Berthelsen and Assistant General Counsel Heather McPhee.

As the NFL’s Jeff Pash observed during a discussion with the Associated Press on Friday, the union represents all active players – yet by protecting those who participated in the bounty system, the NFLPA fails to represent the players who were the targets of bounties and/or were injured by bounty-incentivized hits. Pash is right on point. And quite frankly, if I’m a dues-paying member of a union and I’m deliberately injured by another union member – and the union protects that member – I’m angry.

According to Pash, the NFLPA has not shared the Williams tape or any other information on bounties with the league. Moreover, Pash said that although the NFL has invited “a number of players who we think have information” to speak with NFL officials, the players have thus far been unwilling to do so. “We remain open to hearing their views and their knowledge,” Pash told the AP. “The players know what went on in the locker room in a way that we don’t know.”

Again, Pash is right on.

As for Brees, maybe he’s simply trying to protect his teammates on the defensive side of the ball – and certainly with his general manager, head coach and interim head coach suspended for all or part of the season, I’m guessing he’s unwilling to see any further disruption to the team.

Still, it’s difficult to comprehend how he could turn his back on Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner, Cam Newton, Brett Favre and others who were targeted by Williams’ “incentives”. Football is a physically challenging game in and of itself. Add bounties that reward players for injuring opponents and the probability of injury is greatly multiplied.

While injuries are difficult for players to cope with, the burden on families is as great or greater. I’ve seen what wives like Sylvia Mackey and Mary Hilgenberg and Kay Morris and Suzie Heywood – and too many others – have endured.

That’s why the NFLPA’s stand on the bounty scandal is indefensible. And that’s why the union’s failure to act on behalf of the 320 widows who were excluded from the Legacy Benefit is inexcusable.

Under the current terms of the CBA, these widows – whose husbands died before the CBA was enacted on August 4, 2011 – are not eligible for the Legacy Benefit even though each woman’s husband chose the pension option that would continue after his death.

Rather than working with the league, which has already promised to rectify the situation, the NFLPA has instead insisted that the NFL pay the entire cost of including the widows. While the union has refused to contribute $5.8 million (its 49% share of the estimated $12 million cost) to extend the Legacy Benefit to the widows of 320 retired players, it had no problem spending $44 million for an insurance policy that provided active players $200,000 each if the 2011 season had been cancelled.

Is it possible that the NFLPA – the union John Mackey devoted so much of his time and talent to – just doesn’t care about Mackey’s widow Sylvia, who spent the last decade caring for her husband during his descent into dementia?

Or is there a more strategic reason why the NFLPA is ignoring the widows’ plight? Is it possible that the union is hoping to bargain with the league – opening the door to further investigation of the bounties and disciplinary action against players, in return for the league picking up the whole cost of including the widows in the Legacy Benefit?

Regardless of motive, in the NFLPA’s refusal to help the widows, its failure to protect player safety, and its insistence on putting the legal needs of active players before the moral needs of past, present and future players, union officials have made their priorities clear: money comes first.

Bruce Laird
President, Fourth & Goal
Baltimore Colts, 1972-1981
San Diego Chargers, 1982-1983

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Open Letter to the Widows of 320 of Our Teammates

It’s hard for me and my fellow members of the NFLPA former players’ Baltimore chapter to know what you all must be feeling. On or around February 1, 2012, you learned that although your husband wanted you protected – he wanted his pension to continue following his death – and although he did protect you, you are not eligible for the Legacy Benefit. Why? Because your husband died prior to August 4, 2011.

As president of the Fourth & Goal Foundation, I can tell you that we have lobbied the NFLPA, the NFLAA, and the NFL on your behalf for months. I have personally called and written to league officials, as well as members of the NFLPA’s former players’ board and the NFLAA’s board. Only the league has answered our appeals on your behalf.

Fourth & Goal board member Sylvia Mackey has also personally contacted league officials as well as NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith. Again, the league responded immediately. Yet it was one month before De Smith responded – and he simply punted the issue, calling on to the league to cover the approximate $12 million cost of extending the Legacy Benefit to you. Sylvia’s remarks at an NFLAA Super Bowl press conference were overshadowed by the focus on questions about the NFLAA’s financial instability. Although she also addressed the NFLPA’s former players’ convention, no resolution was offered or adopted on your behalf.

Although NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said he will get it fixed – and league officials have reiterated that statement – neither the Commissioner nor the league can do it alone.

The Legacy Benefit was included as part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, negotiated between the NFL and the NFLPA as an additional benefit for former players who retired prior to 1993. Any change, alteration or enhancement to the CBA must be agreed upon and shared by both the union and the league.

Nothing – no letters, no phone calls, no recruiting other widows to the effort, no press coverage – will right this wrong until and unless De Smith works with Roger Goodell to make it right.

During my 12-year NFL career, my teammates and I had each others’ backs. Nearly 30 years after we retired, many of those relationships endure today. It’s extremely disappointing that the NFLPA former players’ board members — and, for that matter, the NFLAA leadership and board members — don’t have your back.

I encourage you to join with Fourth & Goal in urging De Smith and NFLPA’s leaders to stand with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the league in extending the Legacy Benefit to you, just as your husband intended.

Bruce Laird
President, Fourth & Goal Foundation
Baltimore Colts, 1972-1981
San Diego Chargers, 1982-1983

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Maxie Baughan on Tom McHale

I had many rewarding experiences during my football career, many of which are documented in NFL Films and in highlight videos. As I look back, I have to say that one of the most gratifying roles I experiences was this one: I was Tom McHale’s coach at Cornell University.

Tom was a rare breed – he put education ahead of athletics. After two years at the University of Maryland,
Tom gave up his athletic scholarship and transferred to Cornell, where he enrolled in the university’s outstanding hotel school and captained Cornell’s Division I-AA football team.

At 6’4 and 240 pounds, Tom towered over many of our players at Cornell. His level of talent elevated the ability of his teammates. Our opponents often focused on him, freeing other defensive linemen to make plays. And despite the attention opponents paid to Tom, he achieved AP Division I-AA First Team and All-Ivy honors in 1986. He was also runner-up for Ivy League Player of the Year the same year.

Those of you who’ve coached know the challenges coaches face, particularly in dealing with off-the-field issues. In college – even in the Ivy League – players sometimes skipped class, failed courses, broke curfew, or got themselves in difficult personal situations. Tom was never one of those players.

He was responsible. He was dedicated. He was steady. He was a leader.

Tom went on to a nine-year career in the NFL, playing for the Buccaneers, Eagles and Dolphins from 1987 to 1995. After he retired, he opened several successful restaurants in Florida.

In 2008, Tom died of an accidental drug overdose and in 2009, we learned that he was one of the casualties of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Sports medicine has come a long way since I played football at Georgia Tech and in the NFL. We know now that concussions are a serious matter. We know much more about treating concussions and about preventing concussions. And we know better how to protect players.

Lately some folks have questioned whether NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was right to suspend team officials and coaches for turning a blind eye to a bounty system that placed a price on players’ heads.

They’re wrong.

I can tell you that Roger Goodell is the only league or union official who has tackled the issues. Others ignored evidence that concussions had consequences. Others denied disability benefits for injured players. Others blamed players themselves for their fate. Roger Goodell acted.

I commend the Commissioner for taking decisive action. To date, nearly 25 former NFL players have lost their lives to CTE. As far as I’m concerned, if there’s anything we can do to prevent other athletes from suffering the fate of Tom McHale, I’m all for it. 

Maxie Baughan
Board member, Fourth & Goal
Philadelphia Eagles, 1960 – 1965
Los Angeles Rams, 1966 – 1970
Washington Redskins, 1974
Defensive Coordinator, Baltimore Colts, 1975 – 1979
Defensive Coordinator, Detroit Lions, 1980 – 1982
Head Football Coach, Cornell University, 1983 – 1989
Linebackers Coach, Minnesota Vikings, 1990 – 1991
Linebackers Coach, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1992 – 1995
Linebackers Coach, Baltimore Ravens, 1996 – 1998

More about Tom McHale

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