Tom Knott: A collision of beauty, terror in NFL

We love the brutality of football - the sight of a head-hunting free safety taking out a vulnerable wide receiver who is cutting across the middle of the field and has his eyes on the football.

That is a John Madden-speak moment.

Ka-pow. Boom.

That rawness comes with the awful long-term price of scrambled brains.

Concussions are a way of football life, starting in high school.

Although football’s headgear is constantly being improved, the players are faster, larger and stronger, their collisions ever more violent.

An Associated Press investigation on the concussion plague in the NFL - 160 players were surveyed - concluded that nearly one-third of the players either have played through a concussion without notifying the team’s medical staff or minimized its effects.

These findings come after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, union head DeMaurice Smith, ex-players and doctors appeared on Capitol Hill last month to discuss the game’s risks and what, if anything, can be done to reduce those risks.

The essence of football is to put fear in an opponent, whether it is to encourage a receiver “to hear steps” or a running back to seek a soft landing spot before being wrapped up.

A big hit is a badge of honor, no matter its potentially debilitating effects on the brain.

That is the conundrum before the NFL.

It wants to reduce in theory that which it encourages in practice.

There are no genuine solutions, only modest hopes and contrite expressions, if the game is to remain the game that captivates a nation.

NFL nation knows the sadder cases of the brain-damaged: Mike Webster, who was homeless when he died of a heart attack at 50; Terry Long, who committed suicide by drinking antifreeze at 45; and Andre Waters, who killed himself with a gunshot to the head at 44.

The thread of football-related brain trauma connected these once robust and fearless men.

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