LIFE AFTER FOOTBALL
Some remain close to game, others opt for business world.
Life after football hits some NFL players harder than others.
Michael Vick, Steve Smith and Justin Forsett are adjusting to their post-NFL careers in different ways.
Vick, the dynamic fourtime Pro Bowl quarterback who was honored with a retirement ceremony by the Atlanta Falcons last week, isn’t hanging up the cleats just yet. He signed with the American Flag Football League as both a player and adviser for the 7-on-7 organization that debuts in 2018. He’s planning to play in a demonstration game Tuesday in San Jose, California.
“I think it’s great being a retired NFL player (and having) another outlet, to have a chance to go play football and be competitive,” Vick told The Associated Press. “It’s flag. I don’t have to worry about getting hit. I don’t have to worry about serious injuries. I can just throw the football. I don’t have to really run around. You can just sit back (in the pocket), make reads, and have fun throwing touchdowns. That’s the way we played in the backyard, growing up.”
The AFFL’s plan is to field eight league-owned teams in 2018.
“The league eliminates the traditional physical limitations of tackle football, creating a platform for players who have elite athletic ability and speed, regardless of their size,” said AFFL founder Jeffrey Lewis.
Vick, who turns 37 next month, last played in the NFL with Pittsburgh in 2015. He led the Steelers to a 2-1 record in three starts filling in for Ben Roethlisberger.
“I’m satisfied with my career and what I’ve been able to do,” Vick said. “I was hurt the last couple years of my career, but I never told anybody. I just went about my business as a professional and took care of (ankle surgery) once my career ended. I can still play, no doubt about it. If I dedicated myself to four months of training with the health of my ankle now, then I would be able to play. Probably still at a high level.”
But if a team loses its starting quarterback in training camp, Vick probably wouldn’t be interested.
“Given an opportunity to go through the proper regimen, that’s OTAs and offseason strength and conditioning, that’s when you get acclimated,” he said. “If that was to happen, or could happen, maybe I would consider, but without those circumstances and those caveats, I wouldn’t do it.”
Forsett, 31, is three years removed from his best season. He ran for 1,266 yards with the Ravens in 2014 and went to the Pro Bowl, but he bounced around and finished with Detroit and Denver last season.
He began preparing for retirement long ago.
Forsett and two of his college teammates, Wale Forrester and Wendell Hunter, developed a brand called ShowerPill. The company’s main product is The Athletic Body Wipe, a disposable washcloth that can be used when taking a shower isn’t possible.
“It’s a hygiene product for athletes on the go,” Forsett said. “It’s basically a shower inside a wipe.”
The product is backed by a group of investors that includes Smith, Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott, Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart, 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, and former Saints and Bills defensive back Jabari Greer.
“It all started with relationships and friendships,” Forsett said. “You share what you’re passionate about, they see results and get on board. They believed in me as a person and a businessman and they wanted to get behind.”
Smith and Forsett became friends with the Ravens. That relationship led to a business partnership.
“I love to look people in the eye, learn about them, learn their mannerisms and see if we line up morally,” Smith said. “I’ve passed on investments that were home runs because I just didn’t see something in the meeting that I felt good about. With Justin, he’s a lifetime friend. He’s a guy you meet playing football, but you maintain a friendship throughout your life.”
While Vick prepares for safer football and Forsett pursues business opportunities, Smith is getting ready to spend his first season off the field talking about the game. A five-time Pro Bowl receiver with the Panthers and Ravens, he joined NFL Network as an analyst.
He’s also planning to do a lot of traveling with his family because he prepared wisely for retirement.
“My financial philosophy: What you say ‘yes’ to today makes you say ‘no’ to many tomorrows,” Smith said.
“People pay significant dollars for these things; they pay their hard-earned cash because they believe in the athlete or the person that they’re collecting items from,” he said. “When you get taken advantage of, it’s disappointing, and it hurts the market.”
The company’s name comes from the Italian and Latin word for “proof.” It uses a near-field communication chip that’s about the size of a postage stamp and resembles the chip inside a credit card. It can be sewn inside a football or on a jersey. It can also be added later at trade shows or auctions with a sticker that looks similar to a hologram but has a chip inside. A certificate of authentication can be scanned and matched with the sticker.
The Cowboys use the authentication system in players’ jerseys.
Sports collectibles caught on as an industry in the 1980s, said Chris Ivy, director for sports collectibles for Heritage Auctions. It’s one of the fastest-growing categories for the Dallas-based auction house, growing from $42 million in sales in 2015 to $57.4 million in 2016.
Ivy said collectors and auction houses rely on a variety of methods to confirm an item’s authenticity, from dating the fabric of a jersey to comparing its appearance to historical images. Holograms and certificates of authenticity are also used to prove an item’s provenance.
But as the industry has grown, so has the market for counterfeits, Smith said.
He said fake autographs have gotten under his skin for years. In the late 1990s, he discovered a fraudulently signed Cowboys helmet in a Los Angeles shopping mall. He took out his driver’s license and insisted that the store manager take the item off the shelf.
“There’s no telling how many more pieces that he had already sold,” Smith said. “For people who are avid collectors, who trust people who are actually supposed to be selling them something, how can you trust a person who’s authenticating it and selling you the same thing at the same time? Anytime there’s dollars involved, somebody’s going to do something crooked, some kind of way.”
Smith started the Prova Group in 2005 but put it on the back burner when the economy crashed and the market for collectibles dropped. In 2013, Smith brought the technology back with a mobile focus. The company has a suite of enterprise mobile apps that can be used to register an item before it’s signed or digitally notarize an autograph when it is witnessed. Each scan is linked to the user’s account.
This spring, the company launched its first consumer-focused app. Legit, a free mobile app, allows collectors and potential buyers to confirm an item’s authenticity and look up details about its history, such as where and when the item was worn or signed. The app is free in the Google Play store and is expected soon in the Apple store.
Smith has tested the technology along the way, too. He started testing similar smart tags in his jerseys and helmets in 2002, the year he broke the NFL career rushing record. He even tagged the costume from his performance in the finale of the ABC television show “Dancing with the Stars” in 2006 with an early version of the Prova Group’s chip.
The Prova Group has worked with two primary customers to pilot the tech-enabled system: the Cowboys and Hari Mari, a Dallas flip-flop company, said Haroon Alvi, CEO of the Prova Group.
For the Cowboys, a patch tag with a chip inside is sewn into each jersey at the factory. When it arrives in the locker room, the equipment manager scans the jersey and assigns it to a player. By scanning the chip, a collector can later track whether a player broke a record or played a historic game in the jersey.
Hari Mari’s line of high-end leather flip-flops is equipped with near-field communication chips that allow customers to engage with the brand through a branded mobile app. Lila Stewart, co-founder of Hari Mari, said the tagging system is a way to learn more about its customers, who often buy the shoes through wholesale retailers. She said the system will also push out special deals to customers.
Smith said he would like to expand in the art industry, such as tracking props and clothing used in movies. And he said he’d like to add app-based features for sports collectibles, such as pulling up video clips of a game in which a jersey was worn.