With regard to a "pension", why doesn't the NFL have some sort of 401K type plan? Lord knows the players make enough where contributing a portion of their salary to a retirement plan like a 401K shouldn't be an issue!
401k's aren't a retirement plan. People think they are. It's going to be quite sad when reality hits.
But that aside because the real issue of this post is the rest of it.
The people are looking at the regular pension all wrong. Today's player, and Seau is a bad example as he did make millions, has been going up. The pension now versus twenty years ago has increased because of the pressure. Not to the former players liking in terms of enough, and of course the purchasing power would probably means they are about even to twenty years ago despite increases (maybe even less), but many of the vets who have been trying to change this for the past twenty or more years, played well before the million dollar salaries.
Today's players have a lot more explaining to do compared to those who played in the 60's-80's. Few in the 80's made tons of money, but some did. The average player made immensely less. That was the start of the big money. Even then some of the more lucrative at the time million dollar guys only made 5 million or so before tax on those contracts.
For example, the guys getting pensions right now, if you assume they were 22 when they entered the league, started playing in 1979. So the pension issue has really been about the guys who played from the 50's-70's...and perhaps earlier since to even be getting one now starting this year, you would have had to start playing around 1979.
Kind of weird when you think when they finally get the pension thing sorted out, it will be backstopping the million dollar players of the 90's and beyond, and not the ones who never made that. Unless they (older players) live to start getting better benefits at 80-100. But a guy who started in 1990 can't start collecting roughly until 2023.
