Long and semi-depressing post, apologies especially to those of you who dont care about football. During the Buffalo Bills impressive run in the 90s, everyone would talk about Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas on offense, and Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett on defense. But my favorite player was Darryl Talley. Talley usually played outside linebacker, and usually made plays by blowing through the line on a blitz or intercepting a QB who had the temerity to throw across the middle. Talley was known for wearing a Spiderman-patterned undershirt, being the ugliest-looking guy on the gridiron, and sacrificing his body for the game. He is probably the best player on the 90s Bills who will never make the Hall of Fame, if only because he was on a team with so much other talent. Fast forward to now. Talley is mostly broke - his business was a casualty of the recession and needed help from his former teammates to move into his house after being foreclosed on. Bruce Smith is apparently paying for Talleys health care through the ACA. His body is physically damaged, so much so that he cannot raise his arms above his shoulders to tie a necktie. Most horrifying of all, hes suffering from a number of mental conditions that came from a direct result of playing football. Hes contemplated suicide given his dire situation. And although he has said that he would never do it, Bruce Smith makes a good point when he says that it just takes a moment of darkness to overcome someone. I can only imagine what die-hard Chargers and Patriots fans went through when Junior Seau took his life a few years ago. Ive spent a lot of time the last couple of years wondering if supporting pro football is becoming unethical, mostly centered on the long term mental damage associated with football, but also issues with domestic violence and mistreatment of city governments. Im not really interested in having that discussion right now. Lets just say that I want professional football to survive so that I can keep running up my blood pressure, trash talking my friends, and dress my future kids in Bills clothes over their mothers feeble protests. Talley has been treated unfairly by the world, NFL and by the team that I love so much. When the economy tanked and his business suffered, he dipped into his own retirement savings to try and save his business and keep his employees paid, ultimately failing in a noble effort. Hes owed a lot more in concussion settlement but because of a paperwork issue, has been denied a lot of money from a league that has more than enough money to make things right. Im not accusing anyone of palpably evil actions - a lot of his injuries may have just not been diagnosed correctly, and its not like the NFL caused the recession. I am simply saying that more can be done for Talley and the many players like him. So to end on a more hopeful note, theres an GoFundMe campaign to support him and his family right now. Im proud to see lots of fans contribute in such a short amount of time, and hope that grassroots support for him can shame the larger organizations into doing the right thing for all players. I have to confess some selfish motivations for this as well - it helps ease my conscious just enough so that I dont feel guilty for enjoying the Bills playoff push this year. And if nothing else, supporting this is the least I can do to help one of my childhood heroes and to help make this a world that does right by him. buffalonews/sports/bills-nfl/broke-and-broken-20141126
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 00:23:01 +0000