This offseason, NFL needs to do more for its retired warriors

Vikings center Matt Birk was unable to convince fellow players to contribute to the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Bill Frakes/SI Frank Deford's Mailbag Frank Deford will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

As we approach Valentine's Day, the National Football League is the one place where a little love is most needed. The season is over, swords are sheathed and it's time to all get along.

To start with, the owners have opted out of their current agreement with the players union, and so the players are prepared to strike in 2011. The union is in a certain amount of disarray itself because its long-time president, Gene Upshaw, unexpectedly died a few months ago, and the dispute over a successor is ongoing.

But above all the commerce and politics hovers the issue of health, which itself has caused a great rift between the past players and the union. Even Congress agrees that the union has simply not done enough for its retired warriors -- having issued a 144-page report that, essentially, lambasted the union for its heartlessness.

The current players can't seem to recognize the inexorable fact that someday very soon, yes, they too are all going to be past players. Instead, they possess a very unlovely dog-in-the-manger quality. Matt Birk, a center for the Minnesota Vikings, recently tried to get his well-paid co-workers to voluntarily contribute to the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Out of the 1,700 or so would-be NFL Samaritans, barely a dozen responded.

I think everybody involved -- owners, coaches, players, referees, union, commissioner -- should now acknowledge that football is not just another sport. It is uncommonly brutal, and, as the participants grow larger, stronger and faster, it is becoming more violent all the time. Football is dangerous to your health. A 2005 study found 56 percent of NFL players obese. They only get fatter when they quit playing. Dana Stubblefield, a retired All-Star, is on record saying 30 percent in the league use human growth hormone.

Large numbers of retired players suffer from all manner of physical, emotional and mental disability. NFL alumni may constitute a relatively small population, but, really, their situation smacks no less of those health scandals where old workers suffered from something like asbestos poisoning.

It's simply time for football -- all of the NFL ­­-- to start, benevolently, looking after its own. I believe Commissioner Roger Goodell ought to call for some sort of summit, bringing together all the league's constituencies, as well as appropriate medical experts. It's not enough to just keep reciting, well, football's a rough, tough game and we must accept carnage as the price for amusement. In a universe where players are colliding like runaway trucks in high gear, new rules limiting contact simply may be necessary.

Certainly, though, it is time to set up some sort of special retirement insurance fund to truly care for players. Yes, the union has been mean and uncaring, but maybe tending to the wounded shouldn't be its responsibility alone. Football players are modern gladiators, and its time for the NFL to admit that everybody concerned has to pitch in to help the guys who choose to offer up their bodies between the sideline stripes.