September 13, 2022

Dear Retired NFL Players, Families, and Advocates,
 

I'm pleased to share some exciting news with you.  As a result of the horrible race-norming that took place in the settlement, a door was opened for the formation of a player advocacy committee and they will be hosting their first Zoom Forum on October 11, at 8 PM.  As you probably know, changes have been made in the settlement to eliminate race-norming, but Black players are not the only ones who will be affected by the changes.  If you have questions you can submit them prior to the Forum and they will be presented to the appropriate parties for answers.
 

 

As for me, the work still continues behind the scenes through Advocacy for Fairness in Sports.  Those of you who receive Inactive A Disability Benefits are probably aware that beginning in 2024 the NFL and NFLPA bargained in the new CBA to deduct offsets from your disability checks in the amount of your Social Security Disability  check.  And that isn't the worst part of their plan. They will also be eliminating approval through the Social Security Administration disability approval and will start retesting those who qualified through SSA with their own doctors.

Their (publicly) unspoken plan is to cull the number of disability recipients to something close to pre-2007 standards when Congress intervened.  I plan to host a Disability focused Zoom at a date TBA.  Probably early November.  

I am currently working on two measures to hopefully stop them in their tracks, but I need your help to continue my work.  The tools and accesses that I need cost money which has been in very short supply. 

There is absolutely nothing I hate worse than asking for money, except quitting before we reach the end zone due to no reason except a lack of money.  Since I am a disabled person on a fixed SSD income, I’m unable to subsidize the expenses for Advocacy for Fairness in Sports alone.  I hope if you have a little cash you can spare that you will consider making a tax-deductible donation to ensure that we will be here to continue fighting for retired players and their families now and in the future.
 

As always, I seek to make myself available to former players and their families for guidance through a variety of challenges, So please feel encouraged to shoot me an email if there is something on your mind that I might be able to help with. 

You can reach me at defendersheilla@gmail.com or simply reply to this newsletter.  To reach the Player Advocacy Committee and register for the Zoom click on the image in the body of this letter and that will go straight to the Committee.