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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Deep down we all wanted to be Kenny Stabler, right? We all wanted to play quarterback with flowing, rock-star hair, studying the playbook by a jukebox’s light when we weren’t shooting pool and knocking down a cold one with an adoring blonde nearby.
We all wanted to be the Snake, the boys-turned-middle-aged-men of my generation, because he was the ultimate rebel among Oakland Raiders rebels and because he played the sport with the same amount of restraint defining his off-the-field life. That is to say, none.
The game was never going to catch up to the Snake, not after his junior-high coach gave him the nickname for his ability to zig when the bad guys zagged. Despite bum knees and the body of a man who too often called it quits at sunrise, and who once wrote he needed “the diversions of whiskey and women” to survive training camp, Stabler always knew how to escape. Bigger, faster defenders would close hard on him, and the Snake would somehow emerge from a raging pile of humanity and sling it left-handed with hardly a care in the world.
But as it turns out, the game of football ultimately runs down and corners everyone. Stabler might be inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame on Saturday, and if his legacy makes the journey to Canton, it will do so with the letters CTE attached.
Stabler is the most recent deceased NFL player found to have suffered from the progressive degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. He died of colon cancer in July at age 69, and his family donated his brain and spinal cord to Boston University’s CTE Center; Stabler was among the players who had sued the NFL over the occupational hazard that is head trauma.
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The results surprised no football player or fan who followed the case of Frank Gifford, or knew of the suicides of Junior Seau and Andre Waters and Dave Duerson, or read about the accidental pain-medication overdose of Tyler Sash, who died with CTE at age 27 despite appearing in only 27 regular-season and postseason NFL games, and never as a starter.
A study conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University determined in September that 87 of 91 deceased players tested had CTE. Bennet Omalu, the groundbreaking doctor played by Will Smith in the film “Concussion,” estimated that more than 90 percent of all NFL players have CTE.
“The game is not safe,” Hall of Fame linebacker Harry Carson said by phone, “and there’s no way around it. You only have one brain. If you injure it, you can’t get replacement surgery for your brain like you can for your knee or shoulder.”
Carson already has informed his daughter and son-in-law that his 6-year-old grandson is not allowed to play football. “My daughter is afraid to go see ‘Concussion,'” the former New York Giant said, “because she fears her father might end up like those guys who committed suicide. But I’ve assured her I’ve already gone through that period in my life.”
Carson was speaking before the Stabler news broke and relaying the story that he practically jumped for joy when his younger son once failed a physical in his attempt to try out for the Auburn football team. There’s something terribly wrong when a Hall of Famer celebrates his son’s failed bid to play at the major college level and forbids his grandson from even trying to find a little joy on a Pop Warner field.