BETHESDA, Md. — Football season may be over, but that didn’t stop Washington Redskins stars London Fletcher and Alfred Morris from playing a new type of football Wednesday with some wounded troops at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Developed by Visa in partnership with the National Football League, Financial Football is a game for iPads, downloadable from Apple’s App Store, that tests financial literacy. Players answering questions correctly gain yardage and move their team down the field toward the end zone.
Game play in Financial Football works like this: the team with the ball first chooses a play—running or passing plays of different distances—and is then presented with a financial question. If answered correctly, an automated gameplay sequence advances the offense. If answered incorrectly, the offense isn’t so fortunate.
Running back Morris, leading a group of wounded warriors and military personnel, represented the Redskins, and linebacker Fletcher, captaining his own team, represented the team’s hated rival, the Dallas Cowboys.
“Coming through high school and college learning to manage the money I did have, it feels great to instill that knowledge into others,” said Morris, a rookie last season who finished second in the league in rushing.
Morris noted that even though some of his teammates drive Porsches and Bentleys, he can still be seen in his 1991 Mazda. “It gets me from A to B,” he said
Visa introduced Financial Football in 2005, and the current version was revamped two years ago. Fletcher began participating in Financial Football earlier in his career with the Buffalo Bills.
“I learn a lot about financial responsibility every time I come,” Fletcher said. “It wasn’t until I got to the National Football League that I even got a checkbook; I didn’t learn to live on a budget until a few years ago.”
Fletcher told a story of an NFL veteran who recently asked him to borrow some money. Even football players, many of whom make millions of dollars, Fletcher said, still need to learn to be financially responsible and live within their means.
Army Staff Sgt. Darryl Fletcher, 39, of Trenton, N.J., said he is financially literate but was there mostly to see the Redskin who bears his last name. “It’s a morale booster,” said Darryl about the event. He does not know if he is related to London, but was hoping to compare family trees that morning.
In addition to boosting morale, Darryl said hearing London and Morris speak could help educate younger members of the military. He said that all too often, he sees new servicemen and women blowing their first few paychecks on merchandise when that money could go towards something useful down the road.
