The toll, continued

 Last night I watched "Concussion" again, the flick in which Will Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, a pathologist who's largely credited with discovering CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. I did it because Billy Ray Smith Jr. and Ahman Green were in the news this week.

Billy Ray Smith Jr. -- whose father, Billy Ray Sr., played on the same Baltimore Colts defensive line with Bubba Smith -- was in the news because he's dead. A former Pro Bowl linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, he was 64 years old and died from what his family says was CTE  dementia.

And Ahman Green?

The leading rusher in Green Bay Packers history was in the news because he announced on a podcast he had early-onset Parkinson's, a neurological disorder that's frequently accompanied by Lewy-Body dementia. I know this because my dad died of it, slipping slowly away from us until he simply wasn't there anymore.

My dad was 91. Ahman Green is just 49. But sure enough, he says his short-term memory is "trash" now.

Green played 12 seasons in the NFL, after high school ball and college ball at Nebraska. Billy Ray Smith Jr. played 10 seasons in the NFL, after high school ball and college ball at Arkansas, where his daddy also played. 

Now, it's far too presumptuous to say Billy Ray Jr. would be alive today, and Ahman Green's short-term memory would be just fine, had they not played what has become our great American game. But it's not presumptuous at all to say banging heads at cartoon speeds for 18, 19, 20-some years is hardly the secret to a long and healthy life.

Football ain't good for you. Which is not exactly a revelation handed down from above.

On the other hand, it's also a multi-billion dollar industry and a cultural touchstone, which means it's not going anywhere soon. The trick is to alleviate the toll without destroying what created that industry and that touchstone.

The Blob is of the opinion it can't be done. Not to everyone's satisfaction, anyway.

The codgers and knuckle-draggers already are shaking their bony/hairy fists at their TV screens on fall afternoons, saying the colleges and the NFL have let pantywaists and sissies take over the game. Can't touch a quarterback anymore. Can't clock a receiver going over the middle. And what the hell is "targeting," anyway?

Why, son, targeting's just sorting through the pile until you find the schlub with the ball, and then knocking the goo out of him. It's what Dick Butkus or Ray Nitschke or Night Train Lane did on every blessed snap.

And the guys who wind up like Billy Ray Jr. or Ahman Green because of it?

Well, they knew the risks. Didn't they?

The problem with that is they didn't know the risks, or at least the worst of them. And the reason they didn't know, at least on the professional level, is the NFL -- the very pinnacle of the American game -- didn't want them to know. It's why the league spent better than a quarter century telling the world concussions were just a bump on the head, and didn't affect brain function at all. Heck, that's what the helmets were designed to prevent, wasn't it?

So the league just kept stacking cash, while at the same time trying to wreck the careers of the Dr. Omalus of the world. It wasn't just irresponsible; it was flat-out criminal.

And meanwhile, CTE kept showing up in more and more deceased NFL players.

In Junior Seau and Andre Waters and Justin Strzelczyk and Dave Duerson, gone before their time.

In old timers like Frank Gifford and Paul Hornung and Ken Stabler; Jim Kiick and John Mackey and, yes, Bubba Smith.

The toll, continued.

The toll, which is unavoidable without pissing off the fan base -- or at least the codger/knuckle-dragger constituency, most of whom have likely never stood on a modern major college or NFL sideline and heard the sound it makes when two 220-pound 4.5-forty cyborgs come together at warp speed.

I have heard it, and it makes a sound like a car crash. Unless you've also heard it, you simply can't imagine.

Look. Football is not going to go away. We've established that. So what is its future?

Its future is maybe abolishing tackle football until, I don't know, middle school or so.

Its future is a game the codgers and knuckle-draggers hate, but that in time will simply be the football succeeding generations grew up with.

Its future is what I saw on TV the other day.

It was a bunch of kids in shorts and T-shirts playing in the National Flag Football Championships, and it was a blast to watch. There was a girls division and a boys division. The football was fat and white and reminded me of the ball they use in Australian Rules Football. There was running and passing and terrific catches and, on one play, a leaping one-handed interception that turned into an amazing pick six.

It's everything athletic we love about football, without brains getting knocked to squash inside skulls. I don't think it'll ever replace the tackle version, but no one who plays flag is going to die not knowing his or her own name.

He or she won't be Billy Ray Smith Jr., or even Ahman Green. Which is how I wound up watching a certain movie last night, and thinking about all this.