Not all NFL battles are taking place on the field. Led by Mike Ditka and Jerry Kramer, retired players are challenging the league to improve its pension plan, streamline the system of filing disability claims and help out on medical insurance.

To provide perspective on the physical and mental toll the NFL takes on its players, The Denver Post interviewed several members of the Broncos' 1977 Orange Crush team, the first in franchise history to reach the Super Bowl.

The issues we found ranged from head to toe, from Joe Rizzo's anxiety attacks over the prospect of knee-replacement surgery to Rob Lytle's artificial shoulder to Randy Gradishar's mangled finger to Craig Morton's battle-scarred knees, both of which have been replaced.

Not that every player has physical or mental problems.

Billy Thompson is an active 60-something who works in the team's front office. Business partners Steve Foley and Bob Swenson have forged a special bond that began on the field, where the two lined up together on one of the NFL's most famous defenses.

To a man, the former Broncos said they knew what they were signing up for when they put on their helmet to play a violent game. And they've come to accept the toll it has taken.

A closer look at five of those 1977 Broncos:

Gradishar feels fortunate finger worst of his woes

For a guy who used to play football on Sundays, you would think being a regular old weekend warrior would come easy for Randy Gradishar.

You'd be wrong.

At age 55, Gradishar is intent on staying in shape to ward off future physical issues. The tough part is doing it in a middle-aged body that absorbed as much punishment as it doled out during his days at the epicenter of the famed Orange Crush defense.

"It's just humanly not real exciting," Gradishar said when asked about his typical workout. "Man, I hate it. It's just something you've got to do for

your best interests. That's what I'm thinking when I hit that sidewalk or path or rec center: 'I've got to do this for myself.' But it's a difficult thing."

Gradishar played 10 seasons, made seven Pro Bowls, the Broncos Ring of Fame, lined up in 145 consecutive games and was credited with a franchise-record 2,049 tackles, prompting many to wonder why he isn't in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The aftermath of all those bone-jarring tackles?

He underwent seven offseason surgeries in those 10 years. The collide-o-scope of operations started at his right shoulder and ended at his left Achilles tendon, with several painful stops in between.

The surgeries aren't finished, either. Doctors have told him he'll need replacement surgery on his left knee. Then there's "my goofy ring finger," as he calls it. As in, his left ring finger, the one that's grossly displaced after years of wrapping up ballcarriers.

It's no surprise the doctors have told him he needs an artificial joint in the finger.

"Left finger, left knee, it's the same scenario," Gradishar said. "The doctor says, 'When it hurts enough, you'll come see me.' It's just a degree of pain. Right now, I seem to be doing OK with what I've got."

Ask him about his finger, the one that resembles a winding road, and Gradishar shrugs it off. It's not his medal of honor so much as the price of poker for having played inside linebacker. If anything, he says, he's one of the lucky ones.

"It could have been worse," he said. "It could have been my shoulder or neck or head. I feel pretty fortunate. All I've got is loose fingers."

Morton is a graduate of the school of hard knocks

Craig Morton is sitting behind his desk at the University of California, but he's laughing too hard to get any work done.

So, a reporter just asked him, are you working out these days?

"Working out?" Morton said. "I prefer to let my body ferment."

Not that he has a lot of options after 23 surgeries to patch up a body that endured 18 seasons in the NFL. Of those surgeries, 18 have been on his knees.

"Otherwise," said Morton, "I'm running full speed."

He is, by all accounts, a poster boy for improved disability programs sought for former players by Mike Ditka and Jerry Kramer. There's just one problem. Morton hasn't asked, doesn't ask and won't ask for help beyond his normal NFL pension.

He doesn't want anyone's sympathy or money. He's doing fine, he says, living his life as a fundraiser for his alma mater's athletic department, accompanied by his aches, his pains and his convictions.

It takes a tough guy to play quarterback for 18 NFL seasons. But as Morton has discovered, it takes an even tougher one to deal with its aftermath.

"It's amazing how it sneaks up on you," he said. "Mentally, I just won't let myself get to a point where it gets the best of me. I just refuse to bow to the discomfort. It's always worked for me, and that's the way I'm going to keep going. Either I tell myself I'm not hurting or I just take care of it with Ibuprofen or Vicodin."

Or a trip to the surgeon's office. Morton has had both knees replaced, the left one twice. Both shoulders and his right elbow also have been surgically repaired. And to think, it's his neck that's killing him.

You hear that a lot from players who helped build the NFL to prominence in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. They have recurring headaches or neck pain from hits they took as players, but never had their condition diagnosed. Having heard the stories about today's players, Morton figures he's paying the price for concussions he didn't know he had.

"My neck feels like it's on fire sometimes," he said. "I guess it's just getting hit on the head on the field so many times. I don't really know (how many concussions). I might have had some, I guess. In those days, you never really knew if you did or not."

In addition to being a Broncos Ring of Famer, Morton is the subject of one of the greatest legends in team history. He spent the week preceding the 1977 AFC championship game in a hospital with a painful left hip pointer. It wasn't until the morning of the game that he ventured out of his room.

"I didn't think I could play because I couldn't move," he said. "But I was thinking, 'I can't afford not to play.' I got in the whirlpool and made sure everyone saw me. I told them, 'If they don't hit me, we'll kill 'em."'

And so it was that Morton, after one of the coaches tied his shoes in the locker room, walked onto the Mile High Stadium field to deafening applause from the stands. His day's work, by the numbers: 10-of-20 for 224 yards and two touchdown passes to Haven Moses in a 20-17 victory over the dreaded Raiders.

He was sacked once that day, an amazing development given his brittle knees. Thirty years later, at age 64, he just underwent his third knee-replacement surgery.

Having played in an era when quarterbacks didn't slide to avoid a hit, Morton was vulnerable in or out of the pocket.

"The linebackers used to laugh at me," he said. "I never could get out of bounds."

Pain no gain as tough guy fights old foe

It all boils down to anxiety, Joe Rizzo was saying. Anxiety over the pain and swelling in his right knee. Anxiety over the thought of a surgeon replacing his knee with some titanium contraption.

"It's a lot of stress," Rizzo said. "It's gut-wrenching, just the thought of what has to be done. A knee replacement. You start thinking, 'What are they going to do?' It's not like you're going to the doctor and putting a cap on a tooth."

Not even close.

Rizzo, a starting linebacker on the Broncos' Orange Crush defense, played his entire NFL career on a knee he first injured in the Merchant Marines. In time, his discomfort turned to pain, and the pain led him into a vicious cycle of anxiety attacks.

"One begets a whole bunch of different things," he said.

Pills, for one thing.

"It becomes chronic pain, and it never stops," Rizzo said. "Then you do what I did - a lot of aspirin. Long story short, I kind of got hooked on it. All I wanted to do was relieve the pain. I never got into illegal drugs. It was the over-the-counter stuff. You start to feel that knee coming back and, man, you're reaching for that aspirin.

"Every night I could feel it coming on. So I'd pop a few pills and I'd feel OK. Then I'd fire a couple up in the morning. I was supposed to take it after the pain starts, but I got to where I was anticipating the pain. I was supposed to take two every six hours. I was taking three every four hours."

In time, he developed stomach problems and what doctors called rebound headaches. To this day, two years after knee replacement surgery, he deals with the headaches, a withdrawal symptom from all those years of popping pills. But he has escaped from the vicious cycle.

"I was at the gym one day and the surgeon who did my knee happens to be there," Rizzo said. "He said, 'How you doing?' and I said, "Not too good. Ever since the surgery, I haven't felt well.' He said, 'I want you to see a psychiatrist. Don't waste your time anymore with doctors."'

He still sees a psychiatrist. Getting counseling, Rizzo said, has opened a whole new world for him. At 56, he's near his playing weight of 215 pounds and enjoying life in semi-retirement in Wilmington, N.C., after a successful career as a commercial real estate broker.

"I would recommend to everybody out there, if they don't know what the heck is bothering them, see a psychiatrist," he said. "Emotionally - that's the last thing I've kind of got to finish up and I'll be good to go."

Thompson takes proactive approach to staying healthy

When in doubt, they all call B.T.

Billy Thompson, that is. If you're a former Bronco, chances are you have B.T.'s phone number.

No wonder Thompson says, "I thank my lucky stars."

He hears the horror stories from former players who are struggling in bodies worn and torn from the violence of the NFL. Others, like himself, are doing fine.

This particular week, Thompson heard from fellow Broncos Ring of Famer Tom Jackson, one of his closest friends from their days on the Orange Crush defense. Jackson, now a studio analyst for ESPN, had just undergone knee-replacement surgery. Nothing shocking there. Jackson previously had a hip replaced.

Thompson? Let the record show that, at age 60, he's lost a few steps but no body parts.

"I feel great," Thompson said. "My quality of life is still really, really good. Even now, I'm able to ski, play basketball, golf, whatever."

Thompson, more than any former Broncos player, knows the physical challenges ex-players endure. As the Broncos' former alumni coordinator and current director of community outreach, he hears about them first-hand. Which makes him appreciative of not having to confront the physical issues so many of his teammates on the '77 Broncos do.

"My thing is, you want to have some quality of life," Thompson said. "It's hard to do things, enjoy things, if your health isn't there. I've heard the Jim Otto stories. I've heard about John Mackey. The majority of our guys I know, which is a ton, are doing pretty good."

Of course, pretty good is a relative term. In the case of a former NFL player, that might mean his knee-replacement surgery went well or he can play 18 holes without his shoulder barking at him.

Thompson, like so many other NFL players, underwent knee surgery during his career. He was one of the lucky ones. His knee no longer bothers him.

"I missed three games in 13 years," he said. "My body is great, especially considering the pounding it has taken. Very few people come out of football without anything wrong with them. If they do, they didn't play.

"I count my lucky stars that I haven't had any serious health issues. I could have been like some of those other guys. With my knee, I could have been a weather forecaster."

Thompson, given his Ring of Fame status and his job in the Broncos' front office, has taken it upon himself to monitor former players' physical issues. He encourages them to keep their weight down and have their cholesterol and blood pressure checked on a regular basis.

"That's why I work out at least four or five times a week," he said. "I want to have an active lifestyle."

For Lytle, love of the game eases the pain

Rob Lytle retired in 1983, but it wasn't until 1991 that another Broncos player wore 41, Lytle's old number. A coincidence, right? A quirk, a fluke, one of those things.

Not exactly.

"The equipment guys told me they packed it up and wouldn't let anybody have it," Lytle said. "I had so many injuries, they thought it was jinxed."

Lytle quit counting somewhere between 15 and 20 surgeries, two of which left him with an artificial left knee and right shoulder.

If anyone should be bitter about the way the football gods treated him, it's Lytle. But he isn't. He loves the game just as much today as he did in 1977, when the Broncos drafted him in the second round after he finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting behind Tony Dorsett and Ricky Bell.

"I'm doing all right," Lytle said from his home in Fremont, Ohio. "You have your good days and bad, but I get through it. I knew what I was getting into, so I'm not going to grumble about how I feel. I wouldn't have done it any other way.

"The day I retired was the worst day of my life. It didn't come out the way I wanted it to, but I loved it. I loved it all. I'd do it again in a flash. If (Mike) Shanahan called me today and said, 'Rob, we need you,' I'd be out there in a minute."

Here's how much Lytle loves the game that brought him fame and pain: Almost 35 years after he was all-everything at Fremont's Ross High School, he works on the Friday night chain gang at his alma mater's games.

When Lytle was playing, stress was getting ready for a big game or rehabbing from his latest surgery. He's 10 pounds lighter these days, but at 52 he isn't the workout warrior he once was. The will is there, but so are the scars.

"There isn't a lot of lifting I can do," he said. "I can do light stuff, but that's it. I weigh less than I did when I played, but I'm about 2 inches bigger around the waist. Things have shifted on me."

Lytle was a short-yardage back, grinding out 1,451 yards in seven seasons. He scored the first playoff touchdown in Broncos history, a 7-yard run against the Steelers in 1977.

Thirty years later, that same tough guy found himself intimidated at the prospect of losing his left knee. It took a trusted former Michigan teammate, Dan Dierdorf, to convince him to undergo replacement surgery in January.

"He had just had his done, so he talked me into it. He said, 'I'll tell you, Rob, you'll be playing golf within nine weeks."'

The scar remains, but Lytle says the pain, at long last, is gone. "I'm an inch taller now, too," he said. "I never had straight legs before."