THE NFL IS KILLING THEIR ATHLETES

BY: TAYLOR NOVOTNY

The body of an NFL athlete is worth millions. He will be used for the entertainment of a
multibillion-dollar industry. At the end of it, he will be left with the money he made and a body
full of pain he cannot manage. For an NFL player, popping a pill is the norm after a game. Their
bodies are too valuable to sit out because of an ache or a pain. 

The nation is finally opening its eyes to a prescription drug use problem, but still, around 130
people die every day from an opioid overdose. Around 4-8% of users will develop a heroin
addiction (NCBI). People in the general public may never face the pain that a retired athlete from
the NFL faces.  

Opioid use in the NFL is four times more common than opioid use in the general public. Players
line up for morphine shots before games then collect their pills after to ease the pain of their job.
For them, they either play through it or they don’t play at all. The problem with pain killers in
the league is that no player at that level doesn’t face chronic pain.

Austin King was a backup quarterback for Tampa Bay and Atlanta. He only spent four years in
the National Football League. He talks to ESPN columnist in his Gregg Easterbrook about the
dangers of being in a position like his, when players would do anything to get onto the field,
“This is especially bad for the marginal players who know they can be replaced tomorrow. So,
you perform like a wild man on special teams, to impress coaches. If you don’t show the coaches
you will play with the pain and take crazy risks like throwing yourself into the wedge, they will
replace you with somebody who will.” 
 
KEITH MCCANTS
In 1990, Keith McCants felt on top of the
world despite his bad leg. Doctors told him
he was not going to outlast his new five-year
contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
His passion for the game overrode the pain
in his leg, so he took the pill that would
make it all go away. He was young and
naïve about the impact it would have on his
body. 
Keith McCants playing for the University of Alabama
McCants later reports taking up to 183 pills Source: Tuscaloosa News
in one week. He tells Vice the impact it had
on his personality, making him a more Access to opioids in the NFL is stunning. A
violent person, on and off the field. His player has a doctor at their service, ready to
family saw the shift from him being loving give them whatever they need to make it to
and caring to violent and unpredictable. the next game. After they leave the
Eventually, his actions led him to be cut organization, they do not have the same
from the Buccaneers. access they did before. Drugs become
infinitely more expensive if a retiree does
not have insurance. Even if they are
privileged enough to have insurance, doctors
are reluctant to prescribe them. This often
leads them on the path to street drugs. For
McCants, it was a cocaine addiction that
landed him in jail 12 times.  talking about his time in the organization
“Nobody’s been as high as I have and went
as low as I have and lost everything. Even
the will to live, then live to tell about it,”
MARCELLUS WILEY
Marcellus Wiley describes addiction in the
NFL beginning with when you feel like you
aren’t performing as well as you know you
can. His teammates would tell him about
Toradol, an anti-inflammatory pain-killing
drug that is commonly used throughout the
NFL; off the field, it is used as a pre and
post-surgery numbing agent. He used this to
get back on the field in two weeks after a
surgery that should have taken eight weeks
to recover from, he told Vice in an
interview.
From Wiley’s point of view, there is an
abuse of power and ignorance in the players.
He was diagnosed with asthma at the age of
seven, not even sure if he would be able to
play football. After overcoming this and
becoming an elite player, his doctors started
prescribing things like Toradol. Little to his
knowledge, Toradol can exacerbate the
symptoms of asthma. The doctors did know
this but chose to prescribe it any
Players never hear about the side effects of these
drugs until they get out into the real world. By then
for most of them, it’s too late. If they aren’t already
facing the side effects of addiction, they are facing
the effects of an unhealed body that was bandaged
by pain killers. This is a conversation that is just
starting in the NFL. How many more bodies need to
McCants says, talking about his book he
released in 2018, My Dark Side of the
Game. He now travels to rehabilitation
clinics, churches, high schools and more
and his journey to redefine himself. 
way. This comes with the consent of their
coaches, who need them to perform despite
their pain or longevity of the health issues
they are developing. 
“If your job is to ensure that this person is
going to thrive in his experience and survive
in his next experience, well then do your
damn job.”Wiley
Marcellus Wiley’s Toradol
for the Chargersuse later led to
kidney
Source:failure.
The Marketplace
There’s a power dynamic between a doctor
and a patient that elicits a natural trust from
the patient. Just as a doctor wouldn’t
question the plays an athlete makes, a
patient wouldn’t question the drugs they
pump into their bodies. Especially at the
level of play the athletes are at, they can
assume they have the best doctors in the
business.
be abused before the league decides to put the health and safety concerns of their athletes above
the paycheck they are receiving?