Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

At some point qualification for the NFL pension changed from five years to the current three years. Does anyone know if the players who didn't qualify under the old agreement, a four year player under the old system, were accepted into the new agreement?

From what I understand, you are bound to the CBA which was signed while you were playing. So, if that four-year player played only while the pension was 5 years, then they wouldn't qualify under the 3 year deal unless there is a specific language in the new CBA that allowed past players in. You might be able to find the actual CBA online and find out if that's in there. Sometimes the NFLPA has that info on their site as well, such as a timeline of when things change, so you might be able to find out which CBA that it went from 5 yrs to 3 yrs.

Again, at least from what I understand, that's how some of the pension issues started with the old guard. Early CBAs had small pension amounts even for players who played a long time. Those players were bound to the pension agreements in the CBA that was in place when they played. So, you had guys who played 10, 15 years getting very small checks. More recent CBAs have upped the amount some, but there had to be specific language written into the new CBA. I'm not a labor lawyer or anything but that's my understanding of how it works based on what players have told me. Hope that helps.

Good rundown of how that works, thanks