Two-time Super Bowl champion Jim McMahon played 15 seasons in the NFL, but his era’s pay structure was vastly different from today’s game. Today, the NFL is an unstoppable $23.5 billion juggernaut where modern quarterbacks easily make $50 million a year. But as McMahon sees it, the bruised and battered pioneers of the 1980s who fought through two labor strikes are now completely left behind.

“I love to play the game. I’m not a big spectator of it,” McMahon told Sean Salisbury on Unpaved Media’s QB Confessions. “I didn’t like being there if I wasn’t playing on the field. If I was on the sidelines, I’d rather been in the damn locker room, having to sit and watch that. But yeah, I just wanna be a player. I’ve never been a good fan. I appreciate what these guys can do. But I don’t need to watch them. 

“I went through two strikes, so they can make what they’re making now. They’re not helping us out at all. They can throw a little bit in the kitty every week with the amount of money they’re making. But they don’t seem to care about the history of the game.”

McMahon’s sourness for the NFL stems from the fact that he made a million dollars only once in a calendar year during his 15-year career. It came in his 12th year in the NFL, and the Minnesota Vikings paid him $1.6 million for playing for them in 1993. And that was the only time he made anywhere close to a million dollars. 

Salisbury noted that the money was one reason why McMahon doesn’t watch the games. The league’s annual revenue goes up to billions. According to McMahon, they could share a portion of that money with the former players and take care of them. 

Nevertheless, there was a time when the two-time Super Bowl champion used to watch the games. 

“Growing up, I was watching all the time,” the former quarterback said. “I was just trying to figure out how, you know, you’re looking at some of these guys, thinking, ‘Wow, I think I can play better than that guy.’ Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to do that, which I did. But after you’re done, it’s draining on you, for one, to play that long, and then to deal with the stuff I had to deal with throughout my career. It’s still bugging me to this day.”

For McMahon, this lack of support hits close to home as he copes with the physical damage from his playing days. The former Bears star is currently suffering from a severe misalignment of his neck (C1 and C2) vertebrae, dealing with excruciating head pain and early-onset dementia caused by trapped spinal fluid pooling in his brain.

Rather than undergoing traditional surgeries, he has completely quit taking prescription painkillers and relies on medical cannabis just to get through his daily routine.

McMahon is far from the only legend calling out the league’s neglect. Pro Football Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson has long slammed the NFL for failing its older veterans, pointing out that former players face massive medical bills while receiving tiny pensions. Dickerson has repeatedly urged the league to use its sky-high revenue to give retired players better healthcare and fair monthly payouts.

McMahon’s refusal to watch the modern NFL highlights a painful truth behind the league’s $23.5 billion success. Having endured two labor strikes and lifelong back injuries so that today’s stars could earn generational wealth, McMahon simply wants the pioneers remembered.