Taking the Hit

Mike Webster, “one of the greatest players in N.F.L. history,” went on to become a recluse who slept on the floor at an Amtrak Station.

Terry Long, who played for the Steelers, “killed himself four years ago by drinking antifreeze.”

Andre Waters, “a former defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles,” shot himself in the head.

These “were men with aching knees and backs and hands, from all those years of playing football. But their real problem was with their heads, the one part of their body that got hit over and over again.”

Malcolm Gladwell asks “how different are dogfighting and football?” in his recent New Yorker essay “Offensive Play.”