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battleangel · 2 months ago

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NFL Throwaway Players: 2 Years of Playing, A Lifetime of Pain

With the NFL games all day tomorrow for Thanksgiving, I have a question for anyone reading this – the same question facing every player in the NFL on average outside of statistical outliers –

Is two years of playing in the NFL really worth a lifetime of pain?

Because that is the deal that the average player that you see taking the field tomorrow during all the football Thanksgiving extravaganzal is taking.

And my question is – is it worth it?

Let’s start with why the NFL is “jokingly” referred to by former players as “Not For Long”.

It is often stated that the average NFL career spans just 3 seasons but even this is an overestimation because it's including outliers like multi-time Pro Bowlers, who play an average of 12 seasons, and kickers who can play as many as 20 to 25 seasons.

If you remove these outliers, in fact, the average NFL career lasts just two seasons.

Keep in mind that although it’s "only two seasons", you are playing tackle football at the absolute highest levels of the sport against the biggest, fastest, strongest, most athletic and most physically talented and gifted football players on the planet.

Trust that the hits are significantly harder than at the college level.

Importantly, keep in mind that while it's "only two seasons", a study found that the risk of CTE increases by 30 percent every year of playing tackle football, meaning the risk of developing CTE doubles for every 2.6 years of football played.

So, the average NFL player by the time their NFL career is finished in two seasons in that relatively short span of time has increased their risk of getting CTE by 60%.

Also, keep in mind that players are only vested in the NFL if they play three seasons, yet the average player only plays two seasons in the NFL.

If you don't vest, it means two critical things: you won't be eligible to receive five years of health insurance coverage provided by the NFL upon exiting the league and you won't be covered under the 2013 $1 billion concussion settlement.

So, if you develop latent neurological symptoms or post-concussive syndrome after your two season NFL career is over caused by a lifetime of playing tackle football from youth to the pros, you won't qualify for a payment from the concussion settlement nor will you qualify for health insurance for five years post-exiting the league provided by the NFL.

Most employer sponsored health insurance plans will consider injuries and concussions sustained while playing football to be pre-existing conditions so even if you get a job after your NFL career ends or if you are married and covered under your spouse's health insurance plan, it will very likely not cover any issues having to do with concussions, repetitive head trauma, injuries and needed surgeries as a result of playing in the NFL and tackle football from the youth level to college.

Okay, what about the millions of dollars?

NFL contracts, unlike every other major American sports league (MLB, NHL, NBA, MLS) doesn't have guaranteed contracts.

On top of this, nearly 60% of an average NFL player's contract is paid through incentives.

What that means is, if the player is concussed or injured and doesn't play, or if the player simply underperforms, he doesn't get those incentives which are over half of his contract.

Additionally, given that the league minimum is over half a million dollars per game, NFL players are taxed at over 50%.

So, the government gets half, the incentives are nearly 60% so any time spent recovering from injuries not playing costs you money and if you underperform you could lose over half of your contract, and your contract isn't guaranteed and the team can cut you if you are injury-prone, concussion-prone (this is a real thing that owners avoid) or if they simply find someone they think can perform better than you.

An NFL player assumes all that risk in a violent brain-damaging collision-filled sport.

An NFL player can be cut at any time, his contract isn't guaranteed, most of his contract is incentives based so if he is hurt or underperforms, he loses over half of his contract, and the government is taking 50% for taxes.

Removing outliers, when the average NFL player only plays 2 seasons, and most black players (70% of the league) are coming from impoverished backgrounds so they are not just buying bling bling and sports cars, nearly all of them are financially supporting their economically disadvantaged families, you can see how shit of a bargain this actually is for the vast majority of the league that wash out in 2 seasons and that are not getting the endorsement deals that Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Tom Brady, Justin Herbert, Peyton Manning, etc. are getting.

The superstars in non-QB positions & non-wide receiver positions like Micah Parsons, Jason Kelce, Odell Beckham Jr. are very few and far in between.

Put another way, over 2,000 men suited up and played in at least 1 NFL game last season.

2,000!

There is no other sport on earth that is as brutalistic, inhumane, dehumanizing, violent and militaristic as football where 2,000 players could conceivably suit up in one season.

In tackle football, you are completely disposable and replaceable, a cog in the machine, unless you are the rarest of the rare superstar at your position.

What about the thousands of throwaway players?

What about them?

So, that's the vaunted "NFL dream" – a two season career.

Okay, what about the rest of your life?

Two years for a lifetime of pain.

Again, players only vest after playing three full seasons but the average player only plays two seasons!

Without being vested, you don't get access to health insurance for five years after leaving the league.

Also, and very importantly, the 2013 concussion settlement only applies to vested players!

Imagine you play a lifetime of tackle football and finally make it to the NFL and then play 2 seasons – the average length of an NFL career once statistical outliers are removed.

Neurological disorders like CTE, Parkinson's Disease, dementia, ALS & Alzheimers Disease are caused by subconcussive repetitive head impacts, not concussions.

The head impacts that occur on every blocking and tackling play, every hitting drill in practice and every scrimmage from Pop Warner to high school to college to the NFL.

That is literally tens of thousands of subconcussive head impacts sustained throughout a lifetime of playing tackle football that then culminates in an NFL "career" that on average only lasts two seasons.

Pop Warner youth players endure on average 336 head impacts per season. High school players endure 600 to 100 head impacts per season. College and NFL players endure 1000+ head impacts per season.

That’s a lot of fucking hits to the head!

So, if you are one of the many former NFL players that develops a neurological disorder after a lifetime of repetitive head impacts, and if you play the league average of two seasons in the NFL once statistical outliers are removed, not only will you not be vested so you won't qualify for five years of health insurance coverage once you exit the league but you also won't be covered under the 2013 concussion settlement as it only covers vested players who played for at least three seasons – so if you develop neurological symptoms including aggression, suicidality, depression, memory loss, confusion, emotional volatility and behavioral and personality changes and get diagnosed with a neurological disorder – keep in mind that it takes on average 10 to 15 years after your playing days are over for latent neurological symptoms to manifest, you will be solely responsible for the out of pocket lifetime medical expenses which are estimated to be as much as $500k to $2m+.

Let's talk about playing two years in the NFL for a lifetime of pain.

Outside The Lines:

“In terms of how they described their overall health, 88 percent of the retired players surveyed said they had excellent health before entering the NFL. Just 13 percent described their health as excellent at the time of the phone survey.

According to sources cited by the Washington University researchers, 26 percent of the general population suffers from some level of pain. But of the 644 former NFL players surveyed, 93 percent suffered some level of pain, and 73 percent described their pain as moderate to severe.

A Washington Post online survey of 500 retired NFL players found that nearly nine in 10 report suffering from aches and pains on a daily basis, and they overwhelmingly - 91 percent - connect nearly all their pains to football.

Nine in 10 former NFL players reported suffering concussions while playing, and nearly six in 10 reported three or more.

Two in three who had concussions said they experience continuing symptoms from them.

Don "Majik Man" Majikowski, former Packers QB who Brett Favre famously came in for after he was injured regarding former Green Bay teammates:

"Hip replacements, knee replacements, you name it, and they had to pay for it themselves and it devastated them, a lot of the guys."

A study at the University of Michigan in 2009 surveyed 1,063 former players.

About eight in 10 reported suffering from pain that lasts most of the day. Among younger retirees, aged 30 to 49, one in three said he was unable to work or limited in work.

And almost 30 percent of them rated their health as only "fair" or "poor."

There are no controlling NFL rules on narcotics consumption, other than that it must occur legally, by prescription.

Of those players who reported no use of prescription painkillers within the past 30 days, 68 percent said they lived with moderate to severe pain.

Of the players who misused prescription painkillers, 96 percent reported experiencing moderate to severe pain.

Of the retired players who admitted to misusing prescription painkillers within the past 30 days, 98 percent said they suffered from undiagnosed concussions compared with 79 percent of those players who did not currently use prescription pain medication.

"It's what you have to do to play. You have to play through injuries. In the last five years, I got a shot of Toradol before EVERY game. People keep playing because they're unsure of their future. They have little real career training and many players don't know what to do without football."

"I had to take shots to play and after games they would dump three or four Percocets in my hands to take for the ride home."

"Whatever you needed, you got. If you were in pain, you got something. We didn't know what we were taking – they just gave it to us."

"It was part of everyday play. How are you going to monitor this? Players are not going to tell you they have a concussion. Concussions were at every practice and every game."

Of the retired players who said they misused opioids in the past 30 days, 27 percent had 20 or more drinks in that same time period.

"There's a major concern that the risk of overdose and death is markedly increased if you're drinking on top of taking painkillers," Compton said. "That would be the No. 1 concern I would have. Some of these men are reporting very heavy levels of alcohol consumption."

"Mixing alcohol and pain pills, that's really scary," said Bob Newton, a former lead counselor at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Newton is also a former offensive lineman who played 11 years for the Chicago Bears and Seattle Seahawks.

"Taking pain medication and alcohol on top of it, that's where people overdose," Newton said.”

I’m going to end my article now with the same exact question I started it with – and if you’re a rabid football fan like the millions who are going to be tuned in all day tomorrow, ask yourself if you can answer it honestly or if you even care to – can anyone honestly read the above and tell me that the average NFL career is worth it?

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