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How a Sport Dies
The NFL has a lot to answer for these days, but it’s not too big to take down
Imagine a sport where head-to-head collisions occur each time the game clock ticks. Imagine a sport where any player on the field could suffer a life-changing, life-threatening injury at any given moment. Imagine that, and you’d be imagining something pretty close to U.S. football.
Kyle Turley is a former offensive lineman for the New Orleans Saints, St. Louis Rams, and Kansas City Chiefs. He earned first-team All-Pro honors — which means he was one of the best players at his position during a season — twice. He’s 6 feet, 5 inches tall, 300 lbs., and this is how he describes his time playing in the NFL:
I remember, every season, multiple occasions where I’d hit someone so hard that my eyes went cross-eyed, and they wouldn’t come uncrossed for a full series of plays. … You start on your own five-yard line, and drive all the way down the field — fifteen, eighteen plays in a row sometimes. Every play: collision, collision, collision. By the time you get to the other end of the field, you’re seeing spots. You feel like you are going to black out. Literally, these white explosions — boom, boom, boom — lights getting dimmer and brighter, dimmer and brighter.
