Not only wasn’t it back in my account, she stashed another $1.7 million somewhere. To add insult to injury, she called the police and accused me of threatening her. In the state of New Jersey, they have to bring you into the police station and process you, even when it is just one person’s word against another’s. While I was stuck at the police station, she took the rest of the money out of that account.
That night we were over, and a woman scorned was going to bring hell to my world. Some of her last words to me were, “I made you and I will break you.” Our divorce was nasty and as much as I tried to keep my business out of the news, she had reporters on speed dial. Whatever she accused me of, the reporters dutifully wrote about. Whatever she told the reporters was written as the truth.
She attacked me over and over with allegations that I’m gay, that I’m a cheater and that I’m abusive. Yet none of it was backed up with any proof. She tried to smear my name, hoping I would cry mercy and offer to settle. What she didn’t realize was how happy I was with her out of my day-to-day life. It was as if the sun had been set for years but overnight it shined again. As badly as she tried to kill me in the press, I was too happy to really care.
Now I’m sitting in this audit room because Jean was trying to take more than she was entitled to get. I argued that she was entitled to $6 million by the terms of our prenuptial agreement, which was generous on my part, and she argued she should get more than double that total, $14 million.
The money that comes from my laying my blood on that field each week is a blessing and a curse. Dealing with Jean on this issue is definitely a curse. The blessings are obvious. Just fourteen years out of college, I have nice cars, beautiful homes, fine clothes and the ability to retire in my mid-thirties and not have to work unless I choose to. This was the life I dreamed about as a kid.
As I sit in the audit room I daydream about how far I’ve come financially in such a relatively short span of life. Am I really worth this much? Have I actually made as much as I‘ve calculated? How the hell did that happen?
I play for love of the game, but I also love the money. I won’t be so stiff-necked and fake to pretend to you that money isn’t a huge part of my life. No matter how much I love the game, I’m not valued in society solely on gridiron accolades and total number of sacks. I’m also judged by the amount of money I make. Money is status in and out of the locker room. Money now drives NFL players as much as a Super Bowl ring. If money weren’t so important, you wouldn’t have guys in the last year of their contracts playing as if their lives depended on it. If you’re the highest-paid at your position in the league, you feel like you’re the best. If you are the best and you have not become the highest-paid at your position, then you will probably look at that as a slap in the face.
If there’s one guy who should be the highest-paid in the league, it’s Tom Brady because of all his championship rings. Yet he took a good deal, but not the league’s highest, and restructured it down the road to help other guys’ deals in the Patriots get done. When it comes to money, most guys can’t put their egos aside like Brady does.
You know what used to be the worst day of the season? It was the day the salary sheets sat on every guy’s stool in the locker room. The sheets were provided by the NFL Players Association, our union, and they detailed what every other player in the league made and pointed out what other guys at our position made.
We got to compare notes on who made what and gauge ourselves by everybody else. Most of the day was spent grumbling and complaining that we deserved more than certain guys around the league and often guys on our own team as well. Seriously, I wish we could remain in ignorant bliss because we’re overly obsessed with salaries. I’m not above it, either. There’s so much money to go around, you want as much as you can get while you can get it. You want more than the next guy and you certainly want more than the guys you believe you’re better than.
Those sheets made guys hate their teammates and certainly players on other teams. We all believe we’re better than each other and worth more than everybody else. We tell it to ourselves, and our family and friends stoke those flames even higher.
“Look at what this guy is making! I’m only making what? Please! I need to get this taken care of. They need to redo my contract!”
Eventually, the league got the union to stop distributing salary sheets during the season because it became so disruptive. That day we’d turn from being a group with one common goal to a room full of individual athletes pissed off that they aren’t getting enough of the pie. The Giants have compensated me well over the last few years, so I haven’t felt that compelled to complain. At least not until this off-season, when in late February I went back to the Giants to ask for a new deal and another extension.
When I signed my last deal it was with the agreement that after Year Five we would evaluate where I was going and I would be paid accordingly. Would I be retiring? Would I be a situational player? Am I still at an elite level at my position? Would the Giants even want me anymore? My salary was cut. Yet I’m still a starter and am counted on to be the team leader. As a result, I asked that my salary be increased to what I’d made the last several years of my deal.
So I had my first meeting with our new general manager, Jerry Reese, to discuss restructuring my contract to pay me more in line with my past salaries and with that of other players at my position. Some of you may think I must be greedy and self-centered for wanting to renegotiate after missing quite a few games over the last three seasons. But remember, this is a business for me, too. As a player, the sooner you realize that you’re a disposable commodity, the better off you’ll be. When your playing days are over, there is no coming back for another piece of the pie.
So get it while you can as often as you can and for as long as you can. This year is going to be one of my most challenging. We no longer have a lot of the veteran leadership we had in the past. No Tiki, no LaVar, no Luke! This makes my job harder because now all the responsibility of leadership falls on my shoulders.
Let’s say your boss lays off several employees and he dumps their work on your desk and tells you to handle it. Would you just smile and do your job without feeling a need to be compensated appropriately? I don’t think so.
My meeting with Reese went badly. I didn’t get the answers I wanted, but that didn’t surprise me. Upset? Yes! Surprised? No! Jerry made it clear they had to make what they felt was the best business decision, which was to make me play for the amount that was on the contract for the upcoming season. He told me to my face that they wouldn’t renegotiate my deal because I had been hurt and they “will find other leaders.” That last comment pushed me over the brink. I fired back at Jerry that if they were going to find another leader, one would have already emerged in the two years I was hurt. But nobody wanted the damn job! Nobody but me wanted to play buffer between Tom and the team.
I told Jerry if I was hurt so much and they could replace my leadership, maybe they should cut me or trade me. I told him I wanted out of his locker room. I wanted out of town.
Did I really want out? Absolutely not. But I was pissed and reacted with my own venom.
Now, this is where the agent game comes into play. Negotiations can get quite nasty, which is why a player doesn’t want to be present, although this time I made an exception. One side talks about how his player is the greatest and the other side tries to poke holes in the player’s game. This is one reason why there’s so little loyalty in sports anymore. When you hear the crap that a team will say about you in your negotiations in order to pinch a penny, of course it’s going to cause bitterness. At the same time, what’s a general manager supposed to do? Agree with every agent who says their client is the best? They’d be forced to overpay the whole league.
The problem is that it gets emotional, like it did for me in late February. Agents tell players about the insults the front office hurls at us about our play and/or about our toughness. They pile on. They want to infuriate the player so they c
an “advise” them to hold out or force that player out of town. The agents play us against the team while the team plays us against the agents. Agents try to get a new deal because that’s how they get paid. They collect 3 percent, and a new deal with new money means more in their pocket.
The business side of football has grown so much that some agents have become celebrities. Look at Drew Rosenhaus and his now infamous “Next question” routine with T.O. He became as much of the story as the client. He even got his own Burger King commercial. This quest for fame has devoured other agents. Some of the biggest agents of 1990s were larger than life. They became the story instead of their clients at times and got too big for their own good. Then they crashed back to Earth, and now they have few, if any, clients and nowhere near the power they held in their heyday.
Because so much money is involved, agents peek, pry and recruit whenever they get a chance. They’ll buddy up to you when they realize you’re going to be a major player. They love to hit you with that “Are you happy with your deal?” line. Hey, guys, where were you before I made the Pro Bowl? It’s illegal under NFLPA guidelines, but it happens all the time. After my first Pro Bowl, agents emerged out of nowhere to convince me they could get me “star” money.
When it looked like I was going to be a pretty high draft pick coming out of college, one agent flew me to a big city to meet a man at a bank. They recruited me in the office of some bigwig banker who had partnered with this particular agent. I don’t remember the agent’s name, but I recall the banker.
Pulling out $50,000 in cash, he pushed it across the table and told me if I signed right there on the spot, I could just walk away with the cash. It was more money than I’d ever seen in my life. How could I not jump on that?
They didn’t tell me it was a loan, that after I received my signing bonus, I’d get a bill for that $50,000 plus interest. If they buy us cars before we’re drafted, it’s all a loan. Most kids don’t realize we have to pay that money back.
The agent game is so big now, bigger firms pay to send athlete clients to work out at specialized training centers to prepare for the draft. The agent spends money to fly the kid back and forth, put him up in a hotel for weeks and pay for all his meals and entertainment. That’s a heck of a lot of cash for one kid, much less ten to twenty athletes. The agents hope these workouts will propel them higher in the draft, which in turn raises their signing bonus, which in turn increases the value of their 3 percent. They spend money to make money. These people find a way to do whatever it takes.
One of the great ironies of our game is, while we’re all consumed with earning more money, half of the young players who come into the NFL try to convince their homeboys that money hasn’t changed them.
Memo to all young players coming into the league: “You’re damn right the money changes you! Know it and accept it. Your world is about to change, period!”
Without the money, we wouldn’t be invited to 99 percent of the upscale events and social gatherings we attend. Financial stability is a major quest in our daily lives. Money puts you in a completely different social stratum. Do you think without money and status, I’d be invited to play golf with some of the most successful and powerful people in this country? It opens up avenues for me and my future. I welcome this change in my life.
Football gives me the ability to never have to worry about financial security. Yet to a young player it’s a grave insult if his friends think money has changed him. Often the money changes the people around you more than it changes you. It’s crazy that some kids would forgo the opportunity to be rich after football in order to save face back home.
When players first come into the league, they want the nice bling, cars and clothes to bring back and show off at home. One reason players can have an issue with another player’s personal conduct is because one person can make all players look irresponsible and careless when it comes to increased finances and notoriety.
This off-season, instead of going to functions and getting grilled about the New York Giants, everyone wanted to know my views on Pacman. It was sickening. We get lumped in with knuckleheads like him, as if the typical NFL locker room is filled with dozens of Pacman Joneses. Pacman should be booted from the league. He doesn’t yet understand the responsibility of being in the NFL and until he does, he shouldn’t be allowed in.
Another memo to the newbies in our league: Evaluate your inner circle. Your homeboys don’t have as much to lose as you do by getting in fights and shoot-outs and smoking weed. So why should you stay in that social circle? Wake your ass up! You’re not the young man wishing for the dream; you now own the dream. The key is to not screw it up. Do NOT let someone else screw it up for you!
When I came into the league I thought I was rich. My signing bonus was $450,000 and I got a check for $268,000 after Uncle Sam took his cut. Plus, I was making about $130,000 in salary. I thought I’d won Powerball. But soon I learned that when you’ve had very little and get showered with a whole lot of dough, it’s easy to go crazy.
Few of us have had any training in financial management. We spend money on the dumbest things, especially early in our careers, because guys put pressure on themselves to impress. They feel like they need to keep up with their new teammates. I wonder if the owners ever look at the stuff we show up with and shake their heads.
“I cannot believe he’s wasting his/our money on that!”
Some players have the attitude, “I’m going to live it up while I can and when it’s over I’ll go back and live life like I used to.” I don’t understand that. That’s not what you beat your body up for. You beat it up so you can retire on a higher level and not go back to where you used to be. How many people can end their working career at age thirty-five? You have the rest of your life ahead of you to live on a higher financial level. But that means you have to save—so save, young men, save.
I tell young guys all the time, “Don’t try to keep up with the (Pacman) Joneses.” Don’t go out and immediately buy a Bentley or a Benz. Don’t buy every diamond chain and watch in the store. Save your money. Nowadays, the NFL actually holds financial meetings for players. We have 401(k) meetings and meetings to alert us about what scams to watch out for. Most players come right out of college. For the most part, we have more experience playing football than counting bills. The last thing you want is to get cut, bounce around and have your stuff repossessed. It happens a lot because we all like to act as if we’re rich.
Perhaps the biggest misconception is that all NFL football players are millionaires. Actually, it’s one of the greatest misconceptions in sports, period. We’ve got a pecking order just like any other corporate entity. Not everyone in any company or corporation makes the same amount of money or is as loaded. Why should the NFL be any different? It’s true we are better off financially than most in the real world, but not all of us have money to burn.
Since it isn’t generally known that we have a pecking order on pro teams, the vultures think we all have lots of money. They see us as targets, easy money in their get-rich-quick schemes. A lot of players fall prey to bad business deals because they want to have something going on outside of football, but they don’t have the knowledge or time to make the side business successful. This causes them to trust and depend on other people that they may not really know. It’s a classic recipe for disaster.
I’ve been approached with a million ideas all guaranteed to make me rich. One friend asked me to invest in a company that was “gonna blow up and be bigger than eBay.” Yeah, sure. Another wanted me to invest in a strawberry-picking patch. I would have cleaned up on that one. I’ve been approached about llama farms, ostrich farms, racehorses, music labels, too many bars and restaurants to remember, car dealerships, movie scripts, clothing, time shares, land deals.
One friend once told me when I was considering a car dealership, “You know how you make a small fortune dealing cars? Start with a large one.” Enough said. Not every deal is a bad deal, but there are a hundred bad d
eals for every good one.
The NFL does a pretty good job of providing us with warnings each year. They’ll explain what scams players have been caught up in. They’ll even warn you about specific sleazy instances.
Legend has it that a player once met a girl in a club and she acted like she was all into him. She brought him home and while they were getting cozy, she slipped something in his drink. After being drugged, the player was stripped naked and put into a bed with, get this, ANOTHER NAKED DUDE!!! The girl took all these naked photos of the player and what appeared to be his gay lover. Of course, they blackmailed this poor guy, but luckily he was smart enough to report it.
We have so many con artists approach us, the NFL provides us with NFL Security, a service that consists of ex-lawmen and investigators who we can call to check out anybody we need investigated.
They procure background checks, run a guy’s history, check out a company, and even check up on your nanny. They provide us with credit checks for people asking for business loans. We’re warned of pyramid and Ponzi schemes. Schemes involving oil or diamonds out of Africa, schemes involving natural gas and land in obscure regions. It’s a great tool that some guys probably don’t take full advantage of.
Believe it or not, the most pressure doesn’t come from these vultures. The business sharks aren’t what get us so unnerved. It’s the people we know or who we’re close to that often make us the most vulnerable. Family and friends make our wealth miserable sometimes. Newfound riches have a funny way of bringing out the worst in people you are most emotionally reliant upon.
A player’s parents can demand money, claiming, “We raised you, now it’s time to pay us back.” It happens more than you know.
Inside the Helmet: Hard Knocks, Pulling Together, and Triumph as a Sunday Afternoon Warrior Page 21
