She’s already learned the first lesson of politics: Candidates have to dial for every dollar. They were struggling to support themselves and their families. Super Bowl XVII. Like her father’s Army buddies, they were basically a bunch of grown-up fraternity brothers—never more so than when Riggo invited his former teammates to stop by the couple’s room at the Holiday Inn.“We probably had 30 people in there, players and coaches,” Lisa-Marie says with a laugh. “With all the money flowing into the NFL and the millions the players are making today, my first thought was ‘Well, hell, if you are a retired player, you must be in pretty good shape.’ I had no idea.”Few people do, which is why the Rigginses and other former players are now mounting a Washington-style campaign to publicize the inequities and try to get them reversed.

But she and John didn’t want to reminisce about gauzy past glories, such as the time John shed Miami Dolphins defender Don McNeal like a wet overcoat while rumbling 43 yards to score the go-ahead touchdown in Super Bowl XVII. “I don’t like being a bully,” she says. Pension parity, on the other hand, would be a frictionless transaction—and seemed simple enough to explain to a busy member of Congress.Then she had her lunch with Fahrenkopf. It touched my sense of right and wrong.”Watters suggested going to Congress—why not try to leverage the lawmakers in the Rigginses’ own back yard? Construction on the house bogged down, and costly complications largely drained the couple’s savings. “Sometimes she’ll be running late and you wonder what’s happening,” Hannah adds. I'll make you famous.Eleven months after he left, Riggins returned to training camp in 1981 with a new contract,A play that was designed for gaining short yardage called "70 chip" turned out to be the key play of the game. Now he felt compelled to help. Life was busy but good.Then Lisa-Marie found herself walking into a Rockefeller Center cafe one day to see some old friends, Sylvia Mackey and her husband, John, a former Baltimore Colts tight end. With the NFL coming off snafus and controversies ranging from Deflategate to its handling of domestic violence, owners and players may be eager to generate positive headlines. But that yearly cost is also less than 2 percent of the NFL’s annual revenue, and it’s not a permanent cost—more of a mortgage to pay down as older guys pass away.Like any political movement, Fair needs a unified base – and former football players are anything but.But will the league and the players’ union be swayed? Watters had grown up rooting for the San Diego Chargers and, until Lisa-Marie explained it, had no idea about the pay gap in pensions. You’re too tight.”John and Lisa-Marie met in the late 1980s through Riggo’s Rangers, his foundation for military and NFL veterans. Eventually, she connected with Danny Diaz, a media-savvy Republican operative (he managed Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign) and a Riggins-era Redskins fan who offered his help pro bono. John was across the street at the Cleveland Clinic getting a comprehensive physical. Following his involvement with "Sirius Blitz" Riggins began hosting his own show, The John Riggins Show, which simulcasts on television and radio on MASN-TV and WTOP-HD3, which airs each weekday afternoon. Roy Kapani, an entrepreneur and Riggins family friend, spoke about how his parents had immigrated to the United States from India and how his ethnicity had sometimes made him feel out of place. “Then you go out to the garage to get something and she’s still sitting in her car talking on the phone.”Relatives of former players used Facebook to question whether Riggins’s organization was exploiting retirees for money.From her desk, topped with folders and legal pads, Lisa-Marie can see John cooking in the kitchen and their younger daughter, Coco, watching TV in the living room. So were a handful of former players’ wives. She remembered rolling her eyes at shouty, finger-jabbing defense attorneys when she was a prosecutor. John was the team’s most beloved star, a country boy from Kansas who became an iconoclastic folk hero—celebrated not only for powerful, punishing runs that earned him the nickname “the Diesel” but also for his off-field wit and irreverence. Photograph by Jeff Elkins.Lisa-Marie and ex-Redskins player Mark Moseley pose for a picture. 44” stationery wasn’t a prank, he agreed. Their pensions, dating from the contracts of a previous era, were relatively puny—in some cases, totaling less than $20,000 a year. Even a grassroots campaign these days needs money—for legal fees, accounting, website hosting. As John puts it: “It was not a great year for us.”Still, he and Lisa-Marie were fortunate.