Eric Lee was just a few years into his NFL career and fresh off playing in a Super Bowl when he started preparing for life after the game.
Johnson Bademosi played nine seasons in the league and now works as an analyst at an asset management company after participating in a development fellowship at NFL offices.
Brandin Dandridge spent part of a season with the Chiefs and recently started a career in sales after participating in a technology training and career transition program specifically for retired NFL players.
Lee, Bademosi and Dandridge are among many former players who have used the NFL’s Player Care Foundation to prepare for the next chapter of their lives after football.
The program, which started in 2018, helps connect former players with relevant job opportunities and resources, including resume reviews, career coaching, predictive index testing, job matching and interview coaching. The former players are also able to participate in certification programs and mock interviews and attend a career fair held each year at the Super Bowl.
“The one thing that I didn’t want to discount going through this process were their resource pieces,” said Lee, a linebacker who spent time with the Texans, Bills, Patriots and Lions between 2016-20. “I could do my own resume. I can do some of these things that seem very easy or simple, so to speak, but allowing someone else to come to the picture and add their professional eyes onto my life, it was very helpful. Sometimes we feel like we have to do everything ourselves, but the human resource that goes behind this, that’s the machine. People actually care. They’ve helped me through this process and along every step of the way.”
Lee joined a virtual American Heart Association information session organized by the NFL’s Player Care Foundation in November 2023 and ended up accepting a position as a development director three months later.
“I’m in the midst of something way bigger than myself,” Lee said. “I work for this huge nonprofit organization. I meet with volunteers and I feel very fulfilled, and I didn’t think that I would feel that same fulfillment outside of football. There’s something about those butterflies before the game, there’s something about going out there and getting that sack and the guys coming around you and celebrating. I don’t get those moments anymore. I get to hang around my college teammates here and there, but this is a new chapter and it’s just as fulfilling, just very different in experience.”
Bademosi, who played defensive back for eight seasons with the Browns, Patriots, Texans, Dolphins and Saints from 2012-19, began his new career path with a fellowship in the NFL football operations department in 2023. He turned that into a role as an analyst at Blue Owl Capital.
“I was really grateful to get that experience,” Bademosi said about his time learning the ropes in the NFL offices. “It was an opportunity to bridge my experience playing in the NFL with actually working in the headquarters and seeing, in a sense, how the sausage is made, how the business operates, how they’re funded, and how they support players in a variety of ways.”
Bademosi credits the league’s financial education program for steering him toward his new career. He’s also encouraging friends and former teammates to take advantage of the NFL’s programs.
“It’s really developed into bringing guys together to talk about their interests and passions and helping folks develop the skills necessary to network and explore what their next career after football will look like,” Bademosi said.
Dandridge, who played defensive back in the Canadian Football League after spending just a few months in Kansas City in 2022, wasn’t aware he qualified for NFL resources until a former teammate told him to check out the career portal.
He applied and graduated from the Microsoft Leap program, which is a full-time, eight-week training initiative that equipped more than 20 former players with technical skills designed to launch their careers in that space.
“I knew this was something that was important,” Dandridge said. “This is my career after football. I need to prioritize this. I need to take it serious. So that’s kind of the mentality I had going into the course. And ever since Day 1, I fell in love with everything.”
Since its inception in 2007, the NFL Player Care Foundation has assisted 2,741 former players and contributed $21.7 million through various programs that are dedicated to helping retired players improve their quality of life.
“Even though it’s this broader career program, we don’t forget about the player,” said A.J. Forbes, the Player Care Foundation’s program coordinator. “No matter that scale, we still have that one-on-one resource with each player, which I think is what makes us unique and powerful and what kind of delivers these kinds of results. We believe in the transferable skills from football. We believe that the skills that players learn while they’re preparing to get to the NFL, while they are in the NFL and then post-NFL, those translate to corporate.”
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