Panthers' Steve Smith knows why NFL players are broke

Year after year you always hear stories of professional athletes going broke. No matter how much money some of these players make there will be at least one that has a sad tale of wasting or mismanaging scores of money.

Carolina Panthers receiver Steve Smith usually isn't the voice of reason, but he has a pretty good reason of why players are going broke.


“Mismanagement of money doesn’t change because you have a lot of money, there are a lot of guys out there that make a lot of money and that make a little money and still live paycheck to paycheck,” Smith told WFNZ in Charlotte on Wednesday.  “You know, ignorance of how the financial game works or managing money doesn’t exclude you because you have a lot of it, it just enables you to make bigger and dumber mistakes because you have a lot of money.”


Smith also explained that players “sometimes mismanage and mistrust people that they shouldn’t have [trusted],” and that efforts to educate players only go so far, given the nature of how they are paid.  “Just because you are in the NFL doesn’t mean there is a different standard, a lot of people work paycheck to paycheck,” Smith said.  “I’ll tell you why so many players are broke, 17 weeks out of the year you get paid, and the rest, you have to manage.”


“Some people get dangerous, get desperate, and that’s how you get these guys that do drug runs and start driving down highways with kilos of marijuana just so they can get that fast cash.”


Look at what happened to Nate Newton after he retired. He was busted twice for rolling the dopewagon. Recently Sam Hurd was busted for trying to score kilos of cocaine and marijuana.

This is something the NFL needs to get a handle on because if players are trying to get some fast money to make up for what they're losing you'll have some of these players going to jail.