Montana rips NFL
 

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/footb...-montana_x.htm

By Peter Keraotis, Florida Today

ORLANDO — Joe Montana is getting worked up, and I am worried about his blood pressure. Seriously.

Here we were, sitting in a fancy downtown hotel room, sipping Starbucks and talking about, of all things, Montana's battle against high blood pressure, when suddenly the arguably greatest quarterback in history goes off on the NFL.

Montana and the NFL have issues, and the more he talked about them, the more animated and irritated he became. You could see the blood rushing to his face.

Good thing a cardiologist was sitting with us. And not just any cardiologist, either. This was Dr. James Rippe, a Harvard-trained physician, one of the country's leading heart doctors. Together, Dr. Rippe and Montana have teamed to bring awareness to high blood pressure.

Theirs is a good team, too. Joe Montana, now 49, is better known to the masses as Joe Cool, the last guy you'd suspect of suffering from hypertension.

His tale grabs your attention, and thus he makes a good paid spokesperson for the cause. And Dr. Rippe? Well, suffice to say he knows his stuff. You can check it all out on their website — www.getbpdown.com.

Together, they travel the country. But not much. At least not for Montana. He hates being away from his boys, now 13 and 16, and not going to their games. He coaches them in AAU basketball — which, by the way, is Montana's first love, the sport he thought he eventually would play in college.

But it was football he made his mark in, winning the 1977 national championship at Notre Dame, and then four Super Bowl titles with the San Francisco 49ers.

So the talk turns to football and the conversation is going swimmingly until I mention Montana's absence at the Super Bowl this past February.

Perhaps you noticed the void, too, when one-by-one, the NFL honored all the past Super Bowl MVPs. Only three MVPs were missing, including the only guy to have won the award three times. That, of course, would be Joe Montana. Even Tom Brady was there, the guy most moderns compare to Montana. Brady offered the coin toss before the game.

Montana was home in California.

In the San Francisco Chronicle the following day, the paper quoted two sources close to the league and reported that Montana asked for a guarantee of at least $100,000 to appear.

Not true, Montana said.

"Money wasn't the issue," he said. "My one son had a basketball game Friday night and the other one had a game Sunday afternoon at 12:30, and that's where I wanted to be. I didn't want to miss their games."

He was already in Detroit for four days early in Super Bowl week, promoting BP awareness.

"I wasn't going to stay there another three days," he said. "For what? To walk out on the field with a bunch of other once-weres for a few seconds of applause? I don't need that. I'd rather be at my boys' basketball games. The NFL wasn't happy with that. But that's OK. My boys were happy."

He does acknowledge that when the NFL contacted his agent, he suspects that "my agent probably did what all agents do, and asked for an appearance fee."

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the NFL did provide the former MVPs with $1,000 for incidental expenses, as well as first-class airplane tickets, a hotel room, a Cadillac to use, and two tickets to the game as well as tickets to other parties and NFL functions.

Montana confirmed the $1,000 offer and called it "an embarrassment. A thousand dollars? That's all? They should have been embarrassed to offer guys just a thousand dollars. What are you going to be able to do with just a thousand dollars?"

This is where Joe Montana's ire rose, when he talked of how he believes that because he rejected the NFL, the NFL, in turn, tried to embarrass him. He's convinced that the NFL contacted the San Francisco Chronicle, instead of the other way around, purposely trying to make him look bad.

This particularly irks Montana because, he said, the NFL has fought him every step of the way when he's filed for workman's compensation. And he does have some residual health issues from his 15-year NFL career.

Two years ago, when he was promoting BP awareness before the Super Bowl in Jacksonville, he felt soreness in the bulging disc in his neck. But he went and worked out, anyway.

"I thought, 'Surely, I can lift this 20-pound dumbbell.'"

Not.

"From the lower part of my back up to my neck, it went numb," he said. "It felt like it does when you hit your elbow."

He recently had surgery to fuse his neck. Just the other day, he had three vials of fluids drained from a knee. He sees knee replacement surgery in his future, "but I'm trying to put that off as long as I can."

He says the NFL's fight with him over workman's compensation "went all the way to the California Supreme Court, and I won. Twice they've stopped payment, and I've had to fight them again. Just a few months before this last Super Bowl, they stopped payment again. Then they want me to skip my boys' basketball games to help them out.

"That's typical of the NFL. And then they tried to make me look bad."

He shook his head.

"You know what makes me mad? The way they treat former players. Not just me. But some of those old guys, too, those guys who can barely move and walk.

"But that's the NFL. They want you to do stuff for them, but they don't want to do anything for you, not without getting their money. A few years ago, I wanted them to do something for a charity I was doing for kids. It was like I was just another guy. They wanted me to pay full fee."

So he won't go out of his way for the NFL, especially if it means being away from home. But he will travel the country to tell his personal story about high blood pressure, hoping it might save lives.

Here's Montana's story in a nutshell:

Never smoked. Fit. Professional athlete. Bad diet. Some family history of hypertension. Early 40s. Feeling absolutely great. And then — boom! — a regular checkup showed his blood pressure so off the charts that he had an emergency visit with a cardiologist that afternoon.

Now he's on regular medication. More than one drug, in fact. He still maintains good fitness and definitely eats a whole lot better now.

"Used to be I'd skip breakfast and then grab a big burger at lunch," he said. "Especially if I was with my boys. We'd get burgers or maybe pizza. And I was the type of guy who put salt on everything, even before I tasted it. I loved salt. Oh man, if you put a bag of Lay's potato chips in front of me, I could eat the whole thing."

The old 20-ounce porterhouse steaks have been replaced by smaller, leaner cuts of meat, or, more often than not, fish.

His blood pressure is under control, and it mostly stays there. The only danger now is apparently when he talks about the NFL.

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Interesting. Good read.

You really think so? I thought it was a directionless piece that kept changing gears just before it was turning into something substantive. By the time you think you're getting somewhere the article is over.

Heh, to claryify the styling of the article was a bit odd and unimpressive. The content? Interesting.

I have a dangerous BP problem that is stubborn. It's very high and I am on medication but it's still not under control. I go to the doc again Wednesday.

He found out that Bob was comparing Brodie Croyle to Joe Montana and snapped...Ha!

HBP isn't anything to laugh about.

I said it at the time when Joe Montana missed the Superbowl thing that I can respect a guy for wanting his privacy and spending it with the people he loves rather than being in the media spotlight.

Good to see he's getting on top of his medical issues and raising awareness of bp.

:thumbsup:

And as I said on CP, the NFL loves you when you're a star and spits on you when you aren't.

Look at the trouble Unitas had with his arm, or Jim Brown with his legs, or the thousands of claims the NFL turned down for medical coverage.

Players love it while they're there but they don't really understand what happens when the spotlight leaves...

I don't know enough about it, but I'm sure the business side of the NFL can be very harsh, especially to no name players that accumulated just a couple of seasons as backups and had their career's ended by various injuries.

I always thought, as part of an NFL contract, there should be a standard medical insurance clause that would pay out a certain guaranteed amount of money if you end up not being able to play because of injury. Maybe such a thing is already done, I dunno.

There are a few all-time stars that can afford to get jobbed by the NFL but that doesn't remove the resentment.

Elway always made smart invesments, but ask him where he'd be if he had to depend on the NFL for medical coverage (which most NFL players do.)

HBP is nothing to play with. It is regulated as part of your kidney functions and when you blow a gasket that is pretty much game over. I've seen some semi professional marathoners in what appeared to be great shape die from it. Diet and excercise are important but not the only factors.

Joe Montana has right to speak out. This is a much more pervasive issue than the NFL would have you believe and I don't understand why they think fighting a guy who has money and resources is a smart thing. The league should be embarassed. $1,000 or to spend an important day with your kid? Are you nuts? Apparently Joe should be humbled by the opportunity to further erode time away from his family.

This article was trying to pan Joe Montana but it only succeeded in making the league look bad and the writer uncertain and arbitrary. It's a shame this story doesn't come out in more media outlets. This is why I bet I could get some of the retired Broncos to come on here and post up. Anybody want to chat with Steve Atwater? Steve Sewell? Any other former Broncos Steves?

Who cares what this idiot has to say.

Who's Montana? ???

Seems to me that the millions he made while playing in the nfl, especially with countless endorsements, would be enough "compensation" for him. I know people that never made millions as a professional athelete that have had knee replacements, back surgeries, etc. I say get over yourself, Joe. He's 49, there will be health problems anyway...
The NFL is what made him able to laugh at $1000 to appear at the SUPER BOWL, for crying out loud.

Montana confirmed the $1,000 offer and called it "an embarrassment. A thousand dollars? That's all? They should have been embarrassed to offer guys just a thousand dollars. What are you going to be able to do with just a thousand dollars?"

Hmmm...But he mentioned that money wasn't an issue. Yeah right.

It's fitting he went out as a chef.

This is why I think praising Gene Upshaw for his great work on the new CBA is full of ****! Upshaw has repeatedly backed off getting help for the former players who really need it in order to get more money for the current generation of players.

He is a glorified Union b**** who refuses to fight for what is worth fighting for, but thinks the new guys making MORE money is going to cure everything. All that happens is that these guys end up blowing MORE money than they have previously. The lack of understanding, discipline, and frugality these guys dismiss because they are NFL players is a serious problem for the average NFL player. However, they promote like hell their Player development program that helps very few players. The NFL tries to project a player conscious image, but in practice they are cutthroat to former players. If they treat the legend Montana like that, think how they treat the three year UDFA player.

This has always been my major gripe with the NFL office. They KNOW what they are doing is BS but they do it anyway.

Please!! You're gonna tell me Montana doesn't have the money to afford healthcare?

I don't think that is his point. In these cases someone has to stand up against the Goliath, and JM is as close to a David as any NFLer can come. He has the means to take them to the supreme court if necessary, whereas the avg retired NFLer cannot. By forcing them to provide him with workers comp he is in essence setting the precedence for all other players. His legal fees alone would supercede any benefit he received from the NFL's worker's comp.

If that response is directed at me, then your are missing the point BIM. One of the greatest players the NFL has ever seen has trouble getting his legitimate benefits from the NFL. What does that mean for the average player who plays three years and makes 1.1 million and has less than 20K left when they bust out of the league? These guys do not qualify for the pension and Full medical plan that Montana has.

He has full benefits and has to sue the NFL to get them to pay what is his. The average player does not, and getting the league to pay for Workman's Comp after they have been "cleared" by team physicians is almost Impossible. That is why injury settlements occur. And the players, lose a ton of money in doing that.

I hope you never have to deal with Workman's Comp BIM. It sucks. And, if your employer wants to stick it to you, you have to sue them to get them to do what is right.

Have you ever been offended by someone offering you a lowball offer? The money is not the issue, the issue is someone trying to screw you. That is the point. Sure a $1,000 is a lot of money to most of us. It is a pittance to these guys especially during a Superbowl week where that is worth 100 bucks. Plus, he is already getting screwed by the NFL on a lot of other levels.

come on....its not like he is Mike Webster

This has no relevance to the Denver Broncos. Montana is an ass.

What a joke. Just lost more respect for the guy. I don't want to hear about his problems - we all have them. Show up for the appearance (what, once in five years) and do it for your fans. Sounds like a spoiled celebrity. "It's all about me and mine, F the fans." It's not about the $1,000, or the NFL, or his beef with the NFL, it's about the fans. All the other past MVPS were there, do they not have families, is $1000 not a joke to them, do they not have beefs with the NFL? Why were they all present?