Former Eagles quarterback and current Monday Night Football analyst Ron Jaworski says that he tends to side with the players in the ongoing labor dispute. He just wishes the players would give a little more thought to the guys who came before them.
Jaworski told Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer that Jaworski doesn’t think the players of 2011 have given enough consideration to what the players of decades past did to get them to the point where they are now.
“That part does disappoint me,” Jaworski said. “I’ve been around long enough to understand that present-day players, they don’t understand what the guys went through in [past players’ strikes]. . . . Quite honestly, I don’t think they really give a damn about the guys that laid the foundation for the game. I think it’s a lot of verbiage, but I don’t think they really care.”
Jaworski said he’s particularly concerned about health care for retired players who are suffering from disabilities, which he said is lacking.
“I see these guys limping around and the physical handicaps they’re now living under. These guys deserve something,” he said. “They deserve some compensation for that, and they deserve medical benefits, and they deserve treatment for all the issues that former players are now dealing with. We all know the life expectancy of former NFL players is less than a normal human being.”
Although Jaworski says he’s personally doing fine despite a career in which he says he suffered 32 concussions, he’s concerned about players his age who can’t say they’re doing fine. The active players and the owners always say they share those concerns, but we’ll see when the lockout ends whether they’ve come to an agreement that gives those concerns something more than lip service.
