Death a loss for Upshaw family ... and NFL owners

Upshaw also once sat before a group of disgruntled Hall of Famers and, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, told them: "I'm not one to turn the other cheek. You're not going to hit me in the nose and I'm going to sit there and smile."

But when the NFL owners hit him in the nose, Upshaw flinched. There's no other way to look at it. Upshaw's defenders will point out the exceptional benefits package he was able to negotiate for the players, the rising salaries for rookies, the eye-popping salaries for the league's superstars.

That stuff is fine and dandy, but it's window dressing that can't conceal the truth. The NFL is the most violent team sport in the world. It's probably the most lucrative sport. Television networks pay billions of dollars for the right to show three hours of football a week. Companies like Coca-Cola and Budweiser pay millions of dollars for 30 seconds of commercial time during the Super Bowl. This sport has money coming out of every orifice.

And yet the players have no security. None.

Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Carson Palmer ... these guys are worth $100 million only on paper. If they suffer a career-ending injury tomorrow, even if they suffer it in practice, they can be released. Cut. And all those millions of dollars they have left on their contracts wouldn't be worth the paper that contract was printed on.

In the NFL, a contract is a contract only if the player is producing. Get hurt or, colder still, get beaten out ... and the money is gone. Because the player is gone. Fired. His contract? In the shredder. And for every Manning or McNabb there are 40 or more players who have never banked a big bonus. For every Manning or McNabb, there are 40 or more players who live one hamstring tear away from insolvency.

You can hate the way Major League Baseball and the NBA handle their contractual business, the way injured players like Kevin Brown or useless players like Erick Dampier continue to make their money. I hate it, too. But that's not the point. This isn't about how we as a society would like to see the games operated. This is how the players want it done, and believe this: The players in the NFL thought Upshaw was the worst union boss in major sports.

Because in this very important way, he was. He let his players step onto the practice field, into the weight room, into the stadiums on Sundays without financial protection. They play the most dangerous sport in the world, yet they are the most financially vulnerable.

Upshaw once accused the NFL of bringing in an NHL negotiator to hammer down on the NFLPA.

Imagine if the NFLPA did something similar. Imagine if the NFLPA hired MLBPA boss Donald Fehr. Gave him $10 million a year, gave him $20 million, gave him whatever the hell he wanted. And told him to get NFL players a guaranteed contract like he did in baseball.

That's a thought that would chill the blood of every owner in the NFL.

Believe me. Outside of his friends and family, nobody is mourning Gene Upshaw's loss more today than the richest men in the game.