The Cost of Injuries in Football

If you were ever to sit in on a Sunday afternoon viewing of the Jets game with my friends, you would be sure to hear someone remark something to the liking of, "Man. I would love to be a football player and make millions of dollars." While most of us dreamed of attaining the fame and glory that comes with being a professional athlete when we were younger, I feel confident enough to say that no one took into account the potential physical sacrifices that go along with the job. Running the length of the field untouched by multiple two hundred and sixty pound linebackers is much harder said than done.

Despite the fact that the NFL has taken serious steps towards protecting players such as fining both helmet-to-helmet hits and hitting defenseless receivers, players continue to get injured at high rates. According to a recent study, there were over three thousand injuries in the NFL during the 2012-2013 season, with approximately fifteen-hundred of those injuries being serious ones. While us fans gaze in disbelief as Peyton Manning bounced back from a serious neck injury to continue to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, we fail to take notice of the less media-surrounded career ending injuries.

One example of a player's potential being hindered by multiple injuries is the case of San Francisco 49er running back Marcus Lattimore. A highly sought out prospect in high school with comparisons to All-Pro running back Adrian Peterson, Lattimore committed to the University of South Carolina. He went on to receive First-Team All-SEC and Second-Team All-American honors during his freshman campaign, but after tearing multiple ligaments in his knees during his sophomore and junior seasons, Lattimore fell from a presumably top 15 pick to a 4th round nobody in the NFL draft.

In financial terms, this means that Lattimore went from receiving a four year, approximately 10 million dollar contract with a 5 million dollar guaranteed signing bonus to making no more than seven digits a year. Lattimore is spending his first season on the Injured Reserve list, and will most likely not live up to his potential due to long-term knee problems. This is just one of the many examples of injuries resulting in financial consequences for football players.

Unfortunately, while career-threatening injuries occur almost every football weekend, NFL contracts are non-guaranteed. In 2003, multi-dimensional quarterback Daunte Culpepper signed a 10 year, 102 million dollar contract with the Minnesota Vikings, with only 16 million guaranteed. After a couple of up and down seasons and knee injuries, Culpepper received a mere 19 million dollars; less than 20% of his initial contract. Unlike in baseball and basketball where players' contracts are primarily guaranteed, in the NFL, players end up only receiving fractions of their "mega-million" deals.

Teddy Bridgewater after winning the Sugar Bowl

In response to these career-threatening and bank-deflating injuries, promising college football players have taken precautions. The popularity of talented college football players buying disability insurance has burgeoned since the early 1990's. College football players who aspire to be in the NFL purchase disability insurance so that they will still make money even if they have career-ending injuries in college.

Although these injuries aren't statistically likely, future 1st round NFL draft picks Teddy Bridgewater and Jadeveon Clowney have bought insurance policies that are worth ten and five million respectively. Unlike college players, NFL players do not usually take out similar insurance plans because the likelihood for NFL athletes to have career-ending injuries is much more likely than a college football player having a similar injury before making it to the NFL. Therefore, private insurance companies aren't willing to cover the risky lifestyle of being a professional football player.

The most prevalent and arguably most serious injury in the NFL today is concussions. Although there is currently more concussion awareness in the NFL today than there was ten years ago, there were still 265-270 reported concussion cases per season over the past three years. The NFL recently settled a suit with 4500 former players granting retirees 765 million dollars, but I believe I can speak for most of us by saying that the long-term health consequences of concussions cannot be compensated financially. Although athletes may only sit out one game for concussion-related symptoms, the intangible consequences of this injury cannot be met by any amount of money.

So does the financial benefit of being a professional football player outweigh the risks related to career and potential life threatening injuries?

That's for you to decide.