In the days after NFL players voted, narrowly, to approve a new 11-year collective bargaining agreement, ex-New England Patriots running back Patrick Pass sobbed, laying on his couch. Aveion Cason, a journeyman who played in the same early 2000s era as Pass, in the weeks after the March 15 approval of the CBA battled “ice pick” headaches that caused sharp pain in his forehead.
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Like many of their retired peers, they were distraught by significant, unexpected changes to the disability claims system in the new CBA. While not the only shift, the one that hits home for former players is a deduction from their NFL disability payment of anything they get from Social Security Disability Insurance. That amounts to over $20,000 annually for many of the affected; more than 400 men, some of whom are so incapacitated their wives quit working in order to care for them.
“He couldn’t speak, but he had to lay on me to feel some comfort,” Pass’ wife, Monique, said of the days after the vote. “The morning after, when we woke up, you feel like you’re hoping you’ll wake up from a bad dream. My husband sat up on his side of the bed and he’d looked at the wall and he just kept shaking his head. He’s like, ‘Mo, there’s gonna be a lot of suicides because of this.’ And I said, ‘I know, I know. I just hope something or somehow this gets fixed.’”
They weren’t alone in that feeling. Dozens of former players are now represented by a law firm threatening to bring litigation against the NFLPA for agreeing to the change. The prospective lawsuit would revolve around a change to the CBA’s disability section after the labor deal passed, and whether the change could even be made as the letters the players got from the NFL disability board described their awards as lasting a lifetime.
“Ultimately, if they don’t correct what we think are the legal defects in it, we’re going to mount a challenge to it,” said Ben Meiselas, an attorney with Geragos & Geragos. “Look, this isn’t right. Take care of disabled families like that. These are not your billionaires and Ferrari-driving players. These are players who need this money to pay a mortgage.”
For the 40-year-old Cason, the Social Security disability barely covers one of his 15 medications, Qudexy, which is for migraines and seizures.
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When he “was playing, he only had a couple of knee scopes, and ACL and MCL repairs,” said Shannon Cason, Aveion’s wife. “Post-NFL he suffers from traumatic brain injury, anxiety, depression, ADHD, pseudobulbar affect, which is categorized by uncontrollable laughing and crying spells. Let’s see what else, we’ve got a torn rotator cuff, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and PTSD, spondylosis. He’s had surgery on his right shoulder to repair the torn rotator cuff and to try to clean out some of the arthritis that they couldn’t get out. Now he needs the left one done because he has the same problem. He needs … a surgical procedure for his right wrist for the carpal tunnel because his hands go numb. Just at random times, they’ll go numb and so he will have difficulty driving.”
The NFLPA at first publicly downplayed the disability issue after Meiselas, who along with his client, current player Eric Reid, had asked the union to address the concern. The CBA document had been changed after the vote to also apply the Social Security offsets to pre-2015 claims, Meiselas said, while the document the players voted on described the offset as applying only to post-2015 claims. The union in a statement on April 1 called the change not “substantive.”
My disability, livelihood and dignity is not a bargaining trade. https://t.co/GafVzg18NX
— Aveion Cason (@Coach_Cason23) April 2, 2020
I gave the game of football and the @NFL everything i had in me. Gave my all every meeting, practice, workout and game. Not once did i embarrass @NFL. Gave them my life and now they are trying to take it away from me and other disabled players. Im not backing down.
See AlsoFury beats Ngannou — reaction— Aveion Cason (@Coach_Cason23) April 5, 2020
Late last month, the union’s tone changed. NFLPA president JC Tretter in his monthly column on Thursday wrote the union would indeed look at the changes, though he offered no timeframe. The previous week, NFLPA executive committee member Lorenzo Alexander told Daniel Wallach, a contributor to The Athletic, on Conduct Detrimental: The Sports Law Podcast, “We’ve fallen short in that. And I have no issue with admitting that because we do need to acknowledge the impact that we’ve had on these men’s lives. And I’m sorry that it hasn’t been noted.”
The NFLPA has said it had to make tradeoffs in securing the CBA, getting some concessions like better pensions, and giving ground in other ways. Hall of Famer Jim Brown, for example, extolled the pension changes in the new CBA. Even if the NFLPA seeks to change the disability section of the CBA, the NFL would need to sign off, which is, of course, no sure thing. The league did not reply for comment.
Still, Tretter’s new position is a sliver of hope for Roxanne Gordon, who gave up her job in software sales to care for her husband, Amon Gordon, who played from 2004 to 2011.
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“He had a slew of injuries, lots of surgeries,” she said, noting his NFL disability check is $11,200 a month. “I’m not going to list them all, but … the major injuries were Achilles, two microfractures, shoulder surgery and still two more surgeries needed — a hip surgery and an additional shoulder surgery. And that’s just on the orthopedic, again, there’s major traumatic brain injury, a lot of frontal lobe damage, brain bleeds, so … he’s a pretty messed-up guy to be under 40.”
The Social Security offset is not the only CBA disability change; beginning in 2024, the NFL will no longer allow the Social Security disability system to determine who is disabled. After 2007 Congressional hearings put a spotlight on the NFL’s arguable pattern of denial of claims, the league and union agreed to allow players to use the Social Security system to get a disabled certification. While the new change doesn’t directly affect the 400 former players, Roxanne Gordon warns the NFLPA should seek to undo that provision as well.
“The new language is a lot more than (the Social Security offset) because it also affects future players because the way it’s designed is the NFL panel of doctors will be deciding if they’re disabled, and the history of the NFL panel of doctors … it tends to favor the NFL.”
While the new CBA did offer pension improvements, Meiselas said he believes the NFL wanted to get disability payments under control.
“The science is making clear that essentially 100 percent of players in the sport will be retired disabled players, and many will be permanently and totally disabled, using the Social Security qualifier,” Meiselas said. “I think that concern is that the league has, which was kind of forced onto the union, is that … as the science catches up to what’s really been going on, I think the claims are going to be expensive.”
According to the NFL Player Disability & Neurocognitive Benefit Plan Trust tax filings, in the year ended March 31, 2018, the program paid out $138 million in benefits, up $40 million from two years before. Even that lower figure is a steep rise from earlier years. For example in the year ending March 31, 2015, the Trust paid out $45 million, according to that year’s tax filing. And in the year ended March 31, 2013, the Trust, according to that year’s tax return, paid out $24 million.
Rising disability balance sheets is, of course, no concern to Shannon Cason. Last week, she was sitting downstairs in her home when her 2-year-old, who had been upstairs with Aveion, toddled down the stairs and said, “Mommy, oh.”
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“I knew my husband was upstairs sitting on the couch with her, and I didn’t know, so I said, ‘baby, baby,’ and he’s not answering me and not responding to me,” Cason recalled of the 40-year-old former running back and kick returner.
“And so I go upstairs and he’s passed out on the floor. And he told me that all he remembers is he was trying to help her pick up a toy. He felt dizzy and dropped down on his knee and he thought he was OK and he stood up, hit the wall and then fell on the floor. And he said, ‘All I remember is hearing her say, Uh oh.’ And I said, ‘Well, then I guess that’s when she came downstairs to get me.’ But with the stress and everything, just it’s the uncertainty (over disability) has just caused our family … it’s like we’re spiraling.”
(Photo of Aveion Cason: Ralph Lauer / Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
