The scars from Curt Marsh's seven-season, Super Bowl-winning NFL career are as indelible as the life changes they inflicted.

His right leg was amputated eight inches above the ankle. His hip was replaced. He had several lower-back surgeries. A plate was inserted in his neck and screws in his arm. He had, in all, 30 surgeries that left him with an artificial right leg, a special device to put on his socks and the need for personal assistance to go to the restroom.

As a result, Marsh gets disability payments from the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle Retirement Plan for the rest of his life, but along with it comes another annual gift: a trip each winter to a physician not far from his Seattle-area home.

"Every year, they have you go in -- every single year -- to have the doctor look at you to see if you're still disabled," said Marsh, 45, a former Oakland Raiders offensive guard. "So, every year I go back to see if my leg has grown back, or I have a new hip, or whatever. It's part of the system. I guess there are people out there who would take advantage of any system."

Marsh is one of 232 NFL retirees receiving disability benefits from the Bell/Rozelle Plan, and one of only 128 judged to have total and permanent disability. The latter classification is more stringently applied and more difficult to attain, in part because of how the plan is administered and the federal guidelines it must follow.

A contemporary of Marsh's, former Steelers center and Hall of Famer Mike Webster, is the subject of a federal-court appeal in Baltimore as his estate seeks to reap the higher-classification benefit and backdate his disability to his 1991 retirement.

The plan is an area of contention for many former players, who utter much the same criticism: Off a roster, out of mind.

"They definitely have a history of not taking care of their own," said former Steelers offensive lineman Steve Courson, applying a broad brush to the NFL, NFL Players Association and the disability plan.

Courson received part-time disability from the plan for most of a decade because of cardiomyopathy, which initially had him on a heart-transplant list. He worked out carefully, dieted diligently, and in November passed a treadmill stress test that helped to remove him from the disability list and requisite payments. That was his goal, to get healthy and work as a corporate wellness trainer.

"It's tough to fight the plan," said Courson, who tried, taking it to federal court in Pittsburgh and losing. "They got these lawyers on retainer, they're good. That's why they have them."

One problem, critics say, is that many former players remain unaware such benefits are available.

Marsh knew nothing about the disability plan until he visited the Seattle Seahawks' training camp one summer day in 1999. He ran into a former Raiders teammate who works as the Green Bay Packers' director of pro personnel.

"Reggie McKenzie saw me with the artificial leg and asked ... had I heard of it," Marsh recalled.

He hadn't. The process began.

This was a dozen years after he retired from the NFL, which instantly triggered one element of the 1994 amendments to the plan: A former player must make a claim by 12 years after his final season, or by age 45. Such a degenerative disability provision wasn't available before that Collective Bargaining Agreement. Coincidentally, 1994 was also the year that Marsh's leg was amputated, seven years after the right ankle injury on which the team doctor allowed him to play, with injection after injection of painkillers.

Still, Marsh said of the disability payment, "it was difficult to qualify for. I imagine it has to be because you play a sport where everybody's going to get hurt. Everybody's going to have injuries that follow them the rest of their lives. You have to be careful that the ones you allow payment for are the ones that are truly debilitated."

Another offensive lineman from the state of Washington is familiar with the plan, even though he receives no disability payments from it: Mike Utley, the quadriplegic former Detroit Lion got an out-of-court settlement from the team after his 1991 vertebrae injury.

"When I got hurt, my attorneys worked with them to raise the monies [disabled players] used to get," Utley said. "At first, it was $48,000 [per year]. Now, it's better. So guys who got hurt like I did can get something they can survive on."

The minimum for a partial disability, meaning a former player can still find work, is $18,000 per year. Total disability benefits range from minimums of $48,000 and $72,000-plus, depending on the classification. They peak at $234,000 for a paralyzed player such as Utley.

Utley, who also lives in Washington, tries to spread the word about the dangers of brain injuries.

He urges young players to get involved early in the NFLPA, think about their health, worry about their future.

"I didn't walk away from the game -- it was taken away from me," he said. "You don't make a 30-year NFL career. You know the rules. You know the outcome. On the other hand, you need to be taken care of -- as athletes you sell your performance, and [that] should be taken care of in the long run."