We had a former NFL player living next door for about 10 years. First house he bought after leaving the Lions, it was early 90s. He was black. He was very careful with his money, bought a modest house that I expect he paid cash for, worked in banking then dabbled a bit in real estate. I think he is a bank vice president now. The family seemed glad to be “settled” and not doing all the traveling any longer. He did have some nice cars, though.
We had several out here, most moved to Nevada or Florida due to high state taxes. Funny, we do tend to keep a lot of old baseball players.
People need to keep in mind that there are no W-2’s issued in the NFL. Each player incorporates themselves and it is corporations dealing with corporations. Every player has his manager and accountant, training coach, in a lot of ways because they make so much they caused their own problem.