NFL disability program leaves retired Saints tight end hurting and angry
Boo Williams wakes up each morning not knowing how the pain will hit. It could be debilitating headaches that make it impossible to get out of bed. Sometimes the pain shoots down his neck. Through all of it, he’s angry.
Williams, who played tight end for the Saints from 2001-05, needs surgery, medicine and doctors, but struggles to afford any of it. The 44-year-old, who lives in Picayune, Mississippi, was recently awarded $5,000 a month by the NFL’s disability benefit plan, but says the plan and the league have repeatedly mishandled his claims and should have paid him $500,000 or more over the past 14 years.
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“I need all the help I can get because, some days, it feels like it’s going to be all over,” he told The Associated Press. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. It all makes it harder when you’re fighting to get what you deserve and all you do is get frustrated.”
His story is not unlike dozens of retired players in similar positions who spend their days picking through a web of lawyers, paperwork and bureaucracy in a fight against the NFL and its NFL Player Disability &Neurocognitive Benefit Plan.
Over the past 30 years, the league has added millions of dollars to the plan for retired players with injuries they suffered playing football or that emerged after their careers were over. Approved as part of the collective-bargaining agreements between the league and players union, the plan expects to pay more than $330 million in benefits in 2023 — a more than six-fold increase over the past 12 years — NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said.
But plaintiffs’ lawyers point to a high rate of claim denials and a system in which doctors assigned to examine players are paid by the NFL plan as evidence the system is rigged against retirees.
Earlier this year, 10 players, including retired Pro Bowl running back Willis McGahee, filed a lawsuit accusing the program of unfairly denying benefits to injured retirees.
“After years of putting their bodies on the line with the NFL’s promise of assistance should they need it, former players are met with an unfair and biased system for obtaining their rightful benefits,” said Sam Katz, an attorney representing players in the lawsuit.
Williams, who was first signed as an undrafted rookie for a salary of about $200,000 and made a total of about $2 million over his career, never sought the top award.
His journey through the claims system began in 2009 when he sought benefits under the league’s “line of duty” disability policy for active and recently retired players who suffer football-related injuries.
All signs pointed toward him receiving payments of around $2,400 a month, after an orthopedic doctor assigned by the plan evaluated Williams. Dr. George Canizares graded Williams’ “whole person impairment,” or WPI, — a gauge of the severity of his injuries measured by standards set by the American Medical Association — at 27%. Rules at the time said if a player was rated 25% or higher he could receive benefits.
It would take another 14 years for Williams to get approved for benefits.
“That’s what led to a lot of my depression,” Williams said. “I couldn’t get any help.”
