Retired Football Players Hit The Hill

Former professional football players are in Washington today to talk about football-related injuries and the struggles they have faced in getting disability benefits from the NFL. The players and their family members spoke at a news conference hours before they testified about the issue at a House subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill.

Among the speakers was former Jacksonville Jaguars lineman Brian DeMarco, who said he lived homeless on the streets of Austin three times in the past four years. His back is severely injured as a result of his five-year NFL career. It hurts him to sit. It hurts him to stand. The titanium rods and screws in his back make both actions difficult and painful.

He said he believes the NFL Players Association disability benefits system has failed to help him and needs to be changed.

"The bottom line is the system is broken," DeMarco said during the news conference put on by the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. "This is not just affecting the players; this is affecting entire families, and it's just not right."

Garrett Webster, son of former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, said he understands that sentiment more than most. In 2002, his father died, as he put it, "cold, alone, on a floor, no wife around him, no family, few friends, addicted to painkillers, curled up in a ball," with only Garrett -- then 18 years old -- there to take care of him.

Like DeMarco, Webster and all the other former players in the room, Brent Boyd had turned to the NFL for assistance. In most of their cases, the players said they were denied.

"It's not just the physical and mental disabilities I had, but the added shame and pain that is added by the way the NFL treats us when we file a disability claim," Boyd said.

Mike Murphy, who played for the Buffalo Bills, suffers from a degenerative disk in his back and neck. The 13 surgeries performed on him over the years to treat the injuries have taken their toll. He applied for full disability in 1998, and his claim was approved. Having just won custody of his daughter, Murphy bought a house and a truck with the money he received from the disability benefits.

Six years later, Murphy said he got a call telling him his disability payments would be eliminated. The NFL disability benefits program gave him no warning, he said, and as a result he ended up losing the house and the truck. Most of the rest of the disability money had gone into a college fund for his daughter.

Murphy went from a yearly disability income of $110,000 to zero in the span of a brief phone call, he said. He and his daughter stayed at his parents' home to avoid homelessness. Now, all he is left with is a message, one he intends to publicly state until the NFL provides what he and the other players feel is an adequate response.

"I don't want to ask for anything for free, but I got hurt on their watch; I got hurt playing in the NFL," Murphy said. "I just want them to step up to the table and set things right."

The NFL Players Association has rejected retired players' statements that it does not support them.