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A former NFL player's wife who was shut out of a meeting this week involving commissioner Roger Goodell says limiting the entitlement discussion to former players only clouds the picture of what life is like for many who stand to benefit.

Eleanor Perfetto, the wife of Ralph Wenzel, a backup guard with the Pittsburgh Steelers and San Diego Chargers from 1966 to 1973, told The New York Times she arrived to a Bethesda, Md., hotel Thursday to plead her case with the commissioner despite being told in an e-mail from the NFL that the meeting was for former players only.

"We wives are the voice of players with dementia, because they can't speak for themselves," Perfetto told The Times. "They are only allowing players healthy enough to attend. That means they're getting a very slanted view of what it's like out there."

If there's a woman in the room, I have to watch what I say. Maybe we need to go back and make an exception for her and the wives of players with dementia.

-- Hall of Famer Harry Carson

Goodell, who also met with former players in Dallas in September and last month in Chicago, said those who had requested the meeting had asked it be limited to former players.

Former Giants linebacker and Hall of Famer Harry Carson did not attend the meeting Thursday but planned to organize a meeting for New York, according to the report.

He confirmed Goodell's assertion, according to The Times, and said "players felt that the presence of women could impede the discussion," the newspaper wrote.

"If there's a woman in the room, I have to watch what I say," Carson said. "Maybe we need to go back and make an exception for her and the wives of players with dementia. But then again, men are men and they'll look at that woman and will not say everything they want to say in the manner they want to say it."

Perfetto, who is also a senior director in health policy issues for the pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer, said she sought the commissioner's ear to discuss the NFL's denial of any links between dementia and concussions suffered from playing football.

"They want the meeting to be players only, but I can talk in ways that these players can't," Perfetto told The Times. "How can they think about it and understand what the issues are if they're not there to hear it? They might be afraid of it. Frankly, I think they should be."

The NFL, which is overseeing a study of retired players on the effects of concussions that should be completed by 2010, has disputed any connections between football concussions and dementia despite several studies confirming such a link.

However, the league and the players union do provide up to $88,000 per year to families of former players suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease in a program called the "88 Plan."

But a league spokesman told The Times the program didn't indicate a link between football and dementia. He said the plan was helping assist 97 former players.

"If you wanted to help, if your heart was to really help the guys, you'd want their caregiver there -- you'd want their input," Kay Morris said of the meetings, according to the paper.

Morris' husband, Larry, played linebacker for the Rams, Bears and Falcons from 1955 to 1966 and now lives in an institution in Georgia.

"Maybe they wanted it more manageable," she said.