NFL disability program leaves retired Saints tight end hurting and angry

Former pros say the NFL's Player Disability and Neurocognitive Benefit Plan has failed to provide enough support to deal with medical problems brought on by playing football.

Boo Williams wakes up each morning not knowing how the pain will hit. It could be debilitating headaches that make it impossible to get out of bed. Sometimes the pain shoots down his neck. Through all of it, he’s angry.

Williams, who played tight end for the Saints from 2001-05, needs surgery, medicine and doctors, but struggles to afford any of it. The 44-year-old, who lives in Picayune, Mississippi, was recently awarded $5,000 a month by the NFL’s disability benefit plan, but says the plan and the league have repeatedly mishandled his claims and should have paid him $500,000 or more over the past 14 years.

Tight end Boo Williams of the New Orleans Saints runs with the ball during the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2003. Jamie Squire / Getty Images file“I need all the help I can get because, some days, it feels like it’s going to be all over,” he told The Associated Press. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. It all makes it harder when you’re fighting to get what you deserve and all you do is get frustrated.”

His story is not unlike dozens of retired players in similar positions who spend their days picking through a web of lawyers, paperwork and bureaucracy in a fight against the NFL and its NFL Player Disability & Neurocognitive Benefit Plan.

Over the past 30 years, the league has added millions of dollars to the plan for retired players with injuries they suffered playing football or that emerged after their careers were over. Approved as part of the collective-bargaining agreements between the league and players union, the plan expects to pay more than $330 million in benefits in 2023 — a more than six-fold increase over the past 12 years — NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said.