Current players need more education about the history of their profession. They don’t understand that their seven- and eight-figure salaries exist only because players from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s — who are now in their 60s, 70s and 80s themselves — risked and even sacrificed their careers to fight for basic employment rights that are now taken for granted.

Players of my generation and those who came after me fought to be represented by an agent, to get an independent medical opinion on injuries and to receive severance pay. They had no 401(k) plans or the annuity plans that today give players a total of $2 million as a retirement safety net.

Thousands of players went on strike in 1982 and 1987 to pursue and, eventually, win free agency for future generations of players. Yet today, the sole retirement benefit for these pioneers is a pension check that is less than what today’s average player makes per snap.

In football terms, today’s players should remember their blockers. As a running back, I know that you get only as far as the men who take punishment and remove obstacles for you to run. The nameless linemen in highlight reels didn’t block for just me and long-ago stars like Franco Harris and Walter Payton. They blocked for current players, too.

The National Basketball Association understands this. The N.B.A. has pensions that are three times the N.F.L.’s, and in 2017 the N.B.A. and its players agreed that every player, whether from 1966, 2006 or 2019, would receive the same pension amount — and free health insurance for life.

Chris Paul, the Oklahoma City Thunder point guard who is president of the basketball players’ union, put it this way: “The game has never before been more popular, and all the players in our league today recognize that we’re only in this position because of the hard work and dedication of the men who came before us. It’s important that we take care of our entire extended N.B.A. family.”

Professional football is a wonderful sport, and I hope it’s around forever. But the men who built it will not be. About 100 die every year, and many of them are struggling because their primary employer, one that is now awash in cash, chooses to give them barely any pension.