Channing Crowder loves to talk. Sure, he won’t tell you very much about his one career interception or even the location of London, but he will chat about whatever thoughts pop into his mind about the NFL. For instance, did you know that this lockout is affecting the players financially? Crowder does, and he wants people to understand how his teammates and league peers are starving.

“You have the first, second-year guys – they buy a house, they buy a $100,000 car and now they’re broke and they had just enough money to make it to this next season,” Crowder said. “And I know it. I know plenty of guys that are like that and [there are] already guys trying to take loans out.” (The Sun-Sentinel)

The base rookie salary in 2010 was $325,000, so unless Crowder’s friends were all drafted early in the first round of their respective drafts, they shouldn’t have been spending one-third of their salaries on cars or 200% of their salaries on homes. But that would suggest that professional athletes are careful with their money, even in the face of a lockout that everyone on the planet knew was coming. Seriously, Amish people greeted each other on Mondays in the fall by saying, “Man, this NFL lockout is going to suck.”

At least some recently drafted rookies are surrounded by people who keep them grounded, like Jabaal Sheard of the Cleveland Browns, who lives with his family in Miami and works out on his own until he finally receives a paycheck, and Tennessee Titans rookie Jamie Harper, who lives in his family’s 3-bedroom trailer with 9 other people and hasn’t purchased a car because he’s never owned one.

“Everybody knows the NFL stands for Not For Long,” he said. “The average career is like 3 1/2 years. That money goes out as fast as it comes in.” (LA Times)

As for the players not smart enough to learn from the lessons of the thousands of professional athletes and celebrities before them, you can donate to their fund via PayPal by sending money to KissMyPovertyLineAss@TeachersAndSoldiersThinkYouSuck.com.