Bryan Burwell

All over the National Football League, we see the daily injury reports. On paper, the news of the damaged shoulders, knees, ankles and other assorted twisted human tissue read like impersonal inventory lists. But standing on the sidelines on Sunday afternoon barely 20 yards from the full velocity collisions of a live pro football game, I witnessed a painful reminder of why there is nothing cold or impersonal about the high cost of business in the NFL.

It was real and frightening, shocking and exhilarating all at the same time. I saw a modern gladiator glide across the middle of the field looking like some limber, sky-walking dancer, stretching out to snatch a football out of the air. A split second later, I saw that same elegant dancer body-slammed in a violent midair collision that dropped him to the ground with a shocking suddenness. His helmet went in one direction, the ball went in another direction, and the frothing defender who abruptly halted this hang-gliding dance, stood there snorting and flexing and admiring his bone crushing hit.

On the sidelines, I saw a 6-foot-7-inch, 315-pound giant holding his mangled shoulder close to his body like it was an empty sleeve. I saw his facial expression contort in horrible agony when doctors tried to manipulate it.

These were just two quick snapshots of America’s Game that confirm the conflicting spectacle and essential attraction of football’s artistic savagery. I love football’s beauty and aggression, but I also cringe at its violence and danger. And I understand that just like the folks who are never quite sure whether they should cover their eyes or absorb the full view of a high-speed car crash, football has me and most of America under a similar spell.

But sometimes the spell looses its grip. On Sunday when I saw the disturbing footage of Buffalo Bills special teams player Kevin Everett drop limply to the turf after making a hit on a second-half kickoff, I knew what was coming next because I’ve covered this story before.

When I saw Everett lying on the ground, apparently paralyzed, it took me on an uncomfortable flashback. More than 20 years ago, I was in Baltimore writing about a young high school boy who broke his neck making a tackle on a kickoff. Sixteen years ago, it happened again, when I was in a pressbox in Pontiac, Michigan, and Detroit Lions offensive lineman Mike Utley fell awkwardly to the ground, paralyzed from the waist down, after delivering a thumping pass block.

But on Tuesday, the news from Buffalo sounded so much better. The doctor who performed the surgery on Everett upgraded his condition from critical and life threatening to something shy of a miracle.

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“He could walk out of the hospital,” said Dr. Andrew Cappuccino.

Twenty four hours earlier, Bills teammates were sitting in their locker room still a bit choked up. “I had tears in my eyes,” said Brian Moorman, the Bills’ punter, said early Monday afternoon, his voice breaking. “It was very hard to see. You see the face mask go off, and you know they’re taking every precaution, as they would any time the neck or spine is involved. I was waiting for the thumbs up. That’s what everybody was waiting for.”

To anyone who has ever played this game on any level, it’s an unspoken silent fear that any given play could be your last. You don’t like to talk about it or think about it, but there is a fear that some violent collision could end up ruining your season or ruin your career. It’s the fear that one day it could be you lying on the field motionless with all your teammates and opponents watching in horrified silence.

One of the first things you develop once the bodies get bigger and stronger and faster, and the collisions get more brutal is a mentality that you are The Invincible One. You believe every day of your football life that there’s this invisible protective shield around you, and you keep on believing that until the moment you lose the perilous lottery and it’s you laying on that ambulance gurney strapped down tight from your head to your toes.

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Anyone who has ever played this game understands and silently fears that unnerving instant when invincible football armor meets unprotected human flesh … when a damp, sickening sensation melts through every fiber in your body … then a stinging electric shock slices through your muscle and bones …

When everything goes white hot …

Then everything goes ice cold…

And then … nothing.

Do you know what “nothing” feels like?

Have you ever experienced that horrifying emptiness take over your body? It begins with a flash of blackness and silence, then cold sweat runs down your forehead and you don’t feel it. If you’re lucky, the horror lasts for only a split second or a few panic-filled moments.

Then slowly you begin to regain sensation, as if someone was turning on a spigot, and little by little your limbs begin to tingle again. You feel the sweat trickling down your brow …. And then you begin to receive the signals of that awful pain zapping through your body. The gradual electric flow of this awful sting racing through every muscle fiber never felt so damned wonderful.

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