Hang up the cleats

'Cause the NFL ain't gonna help you

Walk away from the game, Trent. Walk away.

Last year, during the first week of the NFL season, I watched as Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Trent Green lay unconscious on the field.

I said to my friends, "This should be the last time we ever see Green on the field again. I don't care if he comes back from the injury in a week, he needs to retire."

Well, Green didn't retire. He came back from the concussion halfway through the season and completed 61 percent of his passes and the Chiefs made the playoffs behind monster running back Larry Johnson.

In the offseason, Green signed a three-year, $13.5 million contract with my favorite team. Folks asked me, "How's Trent going to do this year?"

I'd simply reply, "He should have retired last year after he took that nasty hit in Week 1."

Well, last week Green suffered the same ugly fate.

Against the Houston Texans, Green was knocked out while diving to block a huge defensive tackle. Travis Johnson's knee slammed into the side of Green's helmet and Green moved no more. He laid unconscious, face down with his arms awkwardly scrunched under the weight of his body.

The play made more news because of how Johnson reacted while Green laid motionless. After the 320-pound Johnson - who didn't see Green diving at his knees - was thrown into a somersault, he was irate and walked over to Green and yelled at him. I don't blame him. Johnson's career could have ended on that play just as easily as Green's. But Johnson was flagged for taunting and television's talking heads took over that evening, doing everything but condemning him to hell.

Fortunately, Johnson apologized for his actions and the league did not fine him.

As for Green, he returned to the Miami Dolphins on Thursday after having extensive tests done in Kansas City, where he learned that he experienced the most severe concussion possible.

Now the talking heads will discuss on a weekly basis whether or not Green's injury-report status has been upgraded when they should be talking about how NFL players who experience multiple concussions can't talk in complete sentences at the age of 60 and how the NFL does nothing to help those poor souls who gave their lives to it.

Green will be one of many in a story that is currently pushed aside on a weekly basis.

It seems nobody remembers the fate of Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame center of the 1970s and '80s Mike Webster. Webster died in 2002, demented from his career concussions and destitute from paying his medical expenses, as the NFL found loophole after loophole to keep from helping him. There are many stories like this.

Here I, along with a multitude of Americans, pay billions of dollars to watch NFL games on TV or buy stadium tickets or team merchandise while owners become crazy rich off our pathetic obsessiveness.

We've got to do something about this and, thankfully, Congress is starting to step in.

In congressional testimony, retired NFL players have told sympathetic lawmakers about the multiple surgeries, mental illnesses and other problems many suffer after years of playing the violent sport, all the while trying to fight through the red tape of the NFL and NFLPA's disability system.

Now, using words such as "travesty," "broken" and "pitiful," Democrats and Republicans have jumped on the industry that generates about $7 billion in annual revenue while paying about $20 million in benefits to a total of 317 retirees, or about $63,000 apiece.

It shouldn't be this ugly for those gladiators we love to watch, years after we've forgotten about them.

Carl Hennell is a sports reporter for the Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached by e-mail at chennell@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4446.