Willis McGahee contemplated suicide. The thoughts that circulated in his mind about putting an end to his life largely stemmed from his inability to accept that his previous one was over.
For 11 years, McGahee was an NFL running back. The two-time Pro Bowl selection enjoyed a fulfilling career with the Bills, Ravens, Broncos and Browns. But when it came to a close following the 2013 season, he didn’t know what to do with himself.
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At just 32 years old, McGahee was lost. Most of his previous years were spent giving football his all. With that taken away, he struggled to identify a purpose.
“When it’s gone, you really have nothing to fall back on,” McGahee said. “It’s just a lot coming at you, man, and it gets mentally tough.”
McGahee thought he could still play, but the NFL had moved on. He was viewed as washed up, injury-prone and unworthy of a roster spot. As the years went on and the finality of his new reality set in, McGahee frequently doubted it was one he wanted to exist in. Taking his own life was something he strongly considered.
“It crossed my mind a couple of times,” McGahee said.
McGahee, now 42, is in a better place. He found a will to keep going — he wanted to be there for his 10 children. He started going to therapy. Overall, he became more disciplined when it came to the maintenance of his mental health.
But while the state of McGahee’s mind has improved, his body hasn’t. His amateur and pro football careers came with injuries that included multiple torn ligaments in both knees, two torn hip flexors, a fractured tibia, a twisted vertebra, a boxer fracture, at least two major concussions, “countless” broken ribs and high-ankle sprains, several knee scopes, dozens of joint aspirations and a litany of other “minor” ailments that have left him in an almost constant state of pain. A doctor once told McGahee he had the “body of a carpenter.”
“It’s just a lot going on,” McGahee said. “And me being the athlete that I am, I just try to suck it up. But I’m tired of sucking it up because it’s killing me inside.”
In his second year out of the NFL, McGahee sought benefits through the NFL Disability Plan. Three potential benefits provide monthly payments through the plan: Total & Permanent Disability benefits, which are for former players who are unable to work due to disability; Line of Duty Disability benefits, which are for players who have a substantial disablement due to NFL activities; and Neurocognitive Disability benefits, which are for players with mild or moderate neurocognitive impairment.
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To receive benefits, former players must complete an online application, provide supporting documents and attend at least one medical examination by what’s described as a “neutral physician” chosen by the NFL Disability Board. (Commissioner Roger Goodell is the chairman of the board, which is composed of three voting members selected by the NFLPA and three voting members selected by the NFL.) From there, the board makes a decision.
McGahee received LOD benefits but was denied T&P benefits. Because he felt his mental and physical impairments rendered him unable to work, he was confused and applied again the following year. Every year since then, he’s been denied T&P benefits. In his most recent application, he cited the combination of orthopedic issues, neurological impairments, neuropsychological impairments and psychological impairments as his reasons for seeking T&P benefits. McGahee and his lawyer Samuel Katz said the doctor he went to see didn’t actually look at his records supporting his impairments and deemed he was still capable of working based solely on a physical observation.
After that denial, McGahee’s frustration with the process morphed into action. He consulted Katz before moved in February to file a class-action lawsuit alongside nine other former players against the NFL Disability Plan and each member of the NFL Disability Board.
The lawsuit alleges the defendants breached their fiduciary duty of loyalty to former NFL players through misinformation in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and wrongfully denied them benefits in violation of the terms of the NFL Disability Plan. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that the physicians consulted to make decisions aren’t neutral because they are financially incentivized to deny disability claims.
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Class-action suit targets NFL disability plans, alleges doctors incentivized to deny claims
“It’s not benefiting the players who are really, actually hurt and going through stuff in life,” McGahee said. “They’re not taking care of us. It’s a sham. I’m tired of it. Somebody has to step up and do something about it.”
McGahee’s NFL career was in jeopardy before it began. In 2003, in the fourth quarter of the final game of his record-setting career at the University of Miami, he caught a screen pass and took a devastating hit to his left knee that tore his ACL, PCL and MCL. The injury took multiple surgeries to repair and, while the Bills still selected McGahee in the first round of the 2003 draft, the extensive rehabilitation process caused him to miss his entire rookie season. It was a traumatic, grueling and frightening experience, but it didn’t change how McGahee played the game.
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“At the end of the day, if (an injury) is meant for you, it’s meant for you,” McGahee said. “I looked at it as, ‘Once I get in the NFL, it’s going to be up to me.’ If you go out there running like you’re scared to get hurt or trying to play all soft, that’s when the injuries occur. But when you just go out there and just let it all out and leave it on the field, man, it tends to work out for you.”
Initially, it did. McGahee rushed for 1,128 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2004, 1,247 yards and five touchdowns in 2005 and 990 yards and six touchdowns in 2006. After being traded to the Ravens in 2007, he signed a life-changing, seven-year, $40.1 million contract.
McGahee justified the investment by rushing for 1,207 yards and seven touchdowns that season, but his injury issues would re-emerge when he suffered cracked ribs late in the year. That carried over to the following season when he dealt with ankle, shoulder, knee and eye injuries.
“I call it a gift and a curse because I learned to play through pain, which normal people wouldn’t do,” McGahee said. “To this day, it’s still bad for me because I can suck it up and I can deal with it, and I can walk around. But, in actuality, I’m f—ing hurting.”
In the 2008 AFC Championship Game, McGahee was knocked unconscious, suffered a concussion and had to be stretchered off the field.
McGahee, then with the Ravens, is taken off the field on a stretcher after a brutal hit from Ryan Clark of the Steelers during the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 18, 2009. (Al Bello / Getty Images)Going into the 2009 season, he lost his starting job. After the 2010 season, he was cut.
McGahee would become a starter again after signing with the Broncos in 2011 and bounced back as he rushed for 1,199 yards and four touchdowns. He kept the job for the first 10 games of the 2012 season, but then the injury bug got him again. In Week 11, he took a hit to his right knee that resulted in a torn MCL and a compression fracture. McGahee’s season was over.
In 2013, McGahee signed with the Browns and became a part-time starter. In a Week 14 matchup with the Patriots, he took another hit that knocked him unconscious and gave him a concussion. It was the final carry of his career.
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From a pain-management standpoint, McGahee first realized he’d entered new territory when he no longer had access to NFL doctors, treatment and, most notably, medication. The hydrocodone, muscle relaxers and Toradol shots he leaned on throughout his career were no longer as easily available. At one point, McGahee even resorted to taking medication prescribed to his grandmother.
McGahee said he now suffers the most pain from a slipped disc in his lower back. He often struggles to get out of bed and can feel the disc moving when he coughs or makes certain movements. That’s along with his aching knees, stiff joints, numbness in his feet and neurological issues that he’s certain stem from his numerous concussions.
Between McGahee’s physical and neuropsychological impairments, his quality of life is headed in the wrong direction. In his lawsuit against the NFL, he’s pursuing help he feels is desperately needed.
“It sucks,” McGahee said. “It hasn’t gotten better. Nothing has gotten better. Everything, as time goes along, gets worse. That’s where I’m at right now. I’m just trying to figure it out. It’s very emotionally stressful. It takes a toll on the mind and the body. Because every day you’re trying to figure out, ‘What’s next? How am I gonna get over this hump?’”
The lawsuit is bigger than just McGahee and his nine fellow plaintiffs. They’re seeking recovery of benefits, but they’re also vying to remove the NFL Disability Board’s members, aiming to prohibit the use of “biased” doctors and hoping to “correct and prevent further misinformation.” The broader goal is to prevent what they’ve alleged to happen from happening again to others.
The NFL moved to dismiss the lawsuit in June because the plaintiffs “fail to state a claim for any violation” of ERISA. In August, the plaintiffs responded to that motion, and the NFL subsequently filed a reply. The judge’s decision on the NFL’s motion is pending.
“There have been roughly 10,000 claims considered since 2008,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy told The Washington Post earlier this year. “Even if those less than a dozen cases were improperly decided — and they were not — the less than one dozen cases hardly amount to a pattern.”
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“We have to obviously have a system to be able to identify who qualifies for those benefits and who doesn’t qualify for those benefits,” Goodell said earlier this year. “And that’s done with the union and management. And the facts are that’s done independently with doctors who make a determination of whether the benefit, an individual, qualifies under that program. So you don’t want people to benefit from it that don’t qualify for it because it takes away from people who do qualify for it. So you’re always going to have people who may think they qualify for it. Doctors disagree. The joint board disagrees. That’s the way the system works. But I would tell you the benefits in the NFL are off the charts.”
McGahee is attended to by trainers after injuring his knee in a 2012 game against the Chargers. (Jack Dempsey / Associated Press)According to the NFLPA, almost 3,200 former players will receive about $320 million in benefits in 2023. That’s a sizable amount, but there remains a significant number of former players who believe they should be receiving benefits but aren’t. The plaintiffs of the lawsuit believe they’re representative of that group.
“When it’s all over and done with, you would think they would be there to help you out,” McGahee said of the NFL. “Think about all the money you’ve made. All of the excitement you put on that football field. And you laid it out and put your body on the line for those guys, for your teammates, for the team, for the city, for the organization. And when it’s all said and done, it’s on to the next person. You’re old news.”
The outcome of the lawsuit likely won’t be determined anytime soon. Both the NFL and NFLPA declined to comment on this story. In the meantime, McGahee and others have no choice but to push on.
Football — the game that they loved, paid them well and gave them years of moments they’ll never forget — is also to blame for the predicament they find themselves in. That truth is inherently bittersweet.
“I don’t regret it,” McGahee said. “But it’s something I’ve got to deal with now.”
(Top photo: Steven Senne / Associated Press)
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