The year is 2026. You’re about to sit down to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers play the London Knights in an NFL playoff game on your HD3 television. That’s what your iPhone 24 sends a pulse to your brain and you get a message with the sad news. Hines Ward, your all-time favorite Steeler has passed away. You think back to his Hall of Fame career…his Super Bowl MVP and the 3 rings he won with the team. You think about his hard work and his electric personality. You aren’t surprised he’s dead though. After he retired, things went downhill fast. Ward suffered from amnesia, dementia, depression, and acute bone and muscle pain. He didn’t live in a house and instead lived in an old camper that he wondered around in throughout the east coast. His own kids had to watch out and care for him. He was only 50 years old.
It’s a disturbing and shocking scenario to think about, but it is exactly what happened to another Steeler: Hall of Fame center Mike Webster. I’m only 22 so I never got to see Webster play, but I’ve seen the highlights and heard the stories of his greatness on the field. I’ve also read about his troubling life after football and the chronic traumatic encephalopathy that ended his life after just 50 years. I struggle somewhat to really grasp Webster’s story because I missed seeing him in his heyday. But imagining something like that happen to Ward or James Harrison or Ryan Clark is a terrible thing to even think about.
But it is going to happen. It might not be a Steeler, but several players who you and I grew up watching are going to suffer from neurological ailments and suffer an early death. It’s the reality of sports right now. Webster. Dave Duerson. Andre Waters. These are Pro Bowl players, Super Bowl champions, Hall of Famers. This cycle has got to stop, but it is going to take some serious change in the NFL and sports landscape.
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For the longest time, I didn’t really think twice about concussions. It was a job hazard for professional athletes and nothing more. I was always the old-school guy standing up and yelling at the injured player on the sidelines to ‘shake it off’ and get back in the game. That has all changed the past year.
I’ve been reading more and more about concussions lately because of the NFL labor talks, Sidney Crosby and ESPN. It seems the more we learn about concussions, the scarier they get. Neurologists have said that Mike Webster’s brain went through the equivalent of 25,000 automobile crashes in over 25 years of playing football at the high school, college and professional levels. Late Bengals WR Chris Henry, who played in the modern, “safer” era of football died when he was just 26 yet autopsies revealed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy as well. Duerson committed suicide earlier this year, shooting himself in the chest. He purposely left his brain intact for neurologists to review because he knew football was the cause of the mental trouble he went through following his career. There is a scary pattern emerging.
To a lot of NFL fans and a handful of NFL players, football is viewed as the last true sport. Football players are the gladiators of the 21st century. Football embraces violence. There are few gimmicks and what ultimately determines the winner is which team is the toughest. That mentality is the blueprint for Pittsburgh football. It is time we think twice about that though.
As fans, where do we separate what injuries are acceptable as occupational hazard and which ones aren’t? Let’s say Hines Ward is willing to knowingly play with concussion symptoms to win the Steelers a playoff game. Is that heroic? I used to be the first to stand up and applaud an injured player like that gutting it out. But, at that point, how do we know Ward isn’t one hit away from becoming the next Mike Webster? Is a playoff win worth 30 years of a persons life? Would Dave Duerson sit out a few extra games during his career if he’d known he would be in so much mental pain that he would take is own life in 2011? Does paying a guy $100 million dollars make the constant headaches he’ll have for the next 50 years acceptable?
The bloodlust and old-school approach to football needs to stop. We’re smarter than that now. It’s time to evolve.
Sports as a whole have gotten much more non-violent over the course of history. We’ve moved from gladiator fights to pistol duels to boxing and now to football. Fighting to the death was a literal form of sport not too long ago. Even when you look at a smaller timeframe, you can see the change. Spend some time watching highlights of the NFL in the 60s or 70s. Heck, just watch highlights of The Steel Curtain. Kicks and punches to the head were common. There was no such thing as a dirty hit. One of the most effective pass rushing methods was to punch the offensive lineman in the side of the head to try and stun him for a quick second. That would be appalling in today’s game to even the most hardcore fans.
What will the NFL look like 30-40 years from now? Will it even exist? I’ve got no answers but one has to think it is going to be radically different, at the very least. As we learn more and more about concussions, who is going to want their children playing tackle football? That statement sounds a little dramatic right now, but we’ve yet to understand the full impact to the brain when a 9-year old football player gets his bell rung. The football landscape is going to shift in a major way.
As entertaining and profitable today’s NFL is, how many players have to take their own lives before some serious changes are made to player safety? It’s 2011. Player suicides and a brain trauma shouldn’t just be the cost of doing business anymore.
