Former Pro Bowl RB details tough transition from football, battle for benefits from NFL

Injuries cost former Buffalo Bills first-round pick Willis McGahee 34 games over his 11-year NFL career.

He retired from the NFL a decade ago at the age of 32, and McGahee admitted in a recent interview with The Athletic that he struggled to cope with life after football, especially given the punishment he subjected his body to for a sport that never quite loved him back.

“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. [Taking my life] crossed my mind a couple of times.”

When he hung up his cleats, McGahee was almost always in pain. He had a list of injuries that would rival a CVS receipt in length and included ailments such as “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 and dozens of joint aspirations,” according to The Athletic.

McGahee suffered a brutal knee injury in the 2003 National Championship Game in which he tore his ACL, MCL and PCL that required multiple surgeries and a lengthy rehabilitation regimen. Despite the fact he would miss his entire rookie season, the Buffalo Bills selected him with the 23rd overall pick in the 2003 draft.