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FloridaToday.com
July 1, 2010
by Pete Kerasotis

Once upon a time, the NFL played a 10-game regular season. Then 12 games. Then 14. Then 16.

And now?

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is dropping some not-so-subtle hints about expanding the regular season to 18 games.

Wilber Marshall thinks he knows why.

"Money," he said.

Shocking, huh?

Marshall is the former Astronaut High standout who later had a great career for the Florida Gators that earned him induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Then he assembled 12 NFL seasons that resulted in two Super Bowl championships and three Pro Bowl appearances.

He knows a little bit about football and what makes that oblong ball go round.

Yeah, obviously it's money.

But what particularly troubles Marshall and many other current and former NFL players is a perceived disregard the league has for the toll football takes on the body.

Marshall knows all too well about that.

For years now, doctors have told him he's going to need knee and hip replacement surgery -- on both knees and hips. He is 48.

It can take him a half-hour or longer to get out of bed. When he was recently in Titusville visiting family (he lives in Virginia) even the humidity adversely affected him. So do other weather changes. He's resisted prescription pain medication, but sometimes he has no other choice.

"I take meds just to walk," he said. "I don't like taking them. I know what they do to the liver. I saw what happened to Walter."

Walter was his friend, Walter Payton, the legendary Hall of Fame running back who died at 44 from autoimmune liver disease and bile duct cancer. Ever since losing his friend, Marshall has championed various organ donor programs.

Meanwhile, he feels the aftermath of his NFL career every day, and as he hears more and more reports about the long-term effects of head injuries, it gives him pause, especially because Marshall recently lost his father to Alzheimer's disease.

"So far, my head's good," he said. "It's just the rest of my body that doesn't work."

Chris Henry, it appears, wasn't as fortunate.

The news this week is that Henry, the former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver who died in a traffic accident last year, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple head hits.

According to an ESPN The Magazine story, researchers discovered CTE in 50 deceased former athletes, many of whom were former NFL and college football players.

Henry was 26 when he died on Dec. 17, a day after he jumped or fell off a moving pickup truck that his fianc�e and mother of his children was driving after they had a spat. Now, Henry's family is wondering whether his erratic behavior -- one witness said he threatened to kill himself -- was more a byproduct of brain damage rather than the passion of the moment.

Wilber Marshall wonders, too.

"Love makes you do crazy things," he said, "but maybe there was also something wrong from all the hits to the head."

One thing isn't disputable.

Football is a brutal sport that routinely destroys the bodies of those who play it.

Earlier this year, one of Marshall's contemporaries, Hall of Fame linebacker Harry Carson, revealed that he suffered 12 to 18 concussions in his NFL career, and that today, at 56, his mental health is an ongoing concern.

The list of early deaths and debilitating, degenerative brain damage among former NFL players grows longer almost by the day.

Always well-spoken and eloquent, Carson these days champions the cause of retired NFL players. He also says that if he had to do it over again, he wouldn't have played football.

Against this backdrop, the league wants to expand the regular season to 18 games, while eliminating two preseason games, which already are fairly meaningless.

"They should keep it at 16 games and eliminate the two preseason games anyway," Marshall said. "But you know how it is. It's all about the NFL making money, and not about the players' health."

Last April, the NFL said it is gifting $1 million to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University. That might sound like a lot of money. But for a billion-dollar industry like the NFL, it's a token. It's sort of like beer companies telling people to drink responsibly at the end of commercials where adults act in the most irresponsible way when there is a brew to be imbibed.

I'm sure the NFL is concerned about head injuries. Why wouldn't they be? It's just that many of its past and present players believe the concern pales in comparison to its most overriding interest.

Money.