The truth is complicated. Your truth might not be my truth. We can be presented exactly the same information, on anything from race to religion to politics, and view it so differently that we end up with voices and fists raised. Even facts and statistics can be manipulated to merely reaffirm what we already believe. That is easier on the ego than admitting you are wrong and changing your mind.

Given that, let’s talk about the muddled issue of broken NFL warriors limping through retirement and demanding more benefits from the modern millionaires who are now cashing in on the blood-soaked path the pioneers blazed.

On the surface, this one is easy. And it is a public-relations nightmare for a players union run by a media-scarred Gene Upshaw, who doesn’t seem to care much about public relations. Popular opinion will always go to the little person against the wealthy empire. It is why that 79-year-old woman was awarded a $2.86 million victory over McDonald’s for spilling hot coffee on herself.

So you have to get informed to understand why the broke and broken former football player isn’t being wronged by his union anymore. But that takes work when it is easier to weep. Complaining is easier than solving. Emotions cloud reason. And science and facts don’t have much of a chance against the human heart feeling for a scalded elderly woman or a 35-year-old former NFL player using a cane.

The media don’t always help. It is easy to put a microphone in front of a loud, lovable cartoon like uninformed Mike Ditka and let him rail against perceived injustices as people gather around the noise and shake their pitchforks. Never mind that Ditka himself administered more cruelty upon players as a coach than the system he presently attacks with so much volume.

He makes for good sound, which is all we seem to care about in journalism sometimes. Ambush shortstop Miguel Tejada, a poor Dominican kid who fudged his age by two years a lifetime ago to get his family out of poverty, and make him squirm in his national shame when presented with his birth certificate on TV. File it under the noble pursuit of journalism. File it under “the truth.”

Here’s my truth: I’ve always thought the football union was a joke just because my brethren said so. Never analyzed it much. And then I had my mind changed by two caring former players who are vastly more informed than I am. Retired Robert Smith and Trace Armstrong are advocates for players just because it feels good to help. They travel all over the country to meetings and pour time and energy and frustration and love into the cause.

Fact: On average, every player you saw on an NFL football field last year gave $82,000 out of his own pocket to retired players.

Fact: With every collective bargaining agreement since 1993, current players have gone back and improved benefits for retired players – an improvement of about $800 million in 15 years.

Truth is, former players have more reason to be angry at the NFL and their teams and their coaches and their ancestors and their lifestyles and themselves than they do at the current union working so hard to protect them. Good luck finding another workplace in the history of labor unions that improves the life of non-union members by taxing present members $82,000 a year.