by Brian Ettkin, Albany News
First published: Thursday, September 7, 2006
They manage the pain, then get the message
Bob Whitfield aches.
His joints creak like a rusty barn hinge and rasp truths he'd rather not hear.
"They tell me stuff, 'You can't do that little maneuver you used to do, try this one,' " said Whitfield, the Giants' 34-year-old offensive tackle.
Whitfield was once a Pro Bowl player in Atlanta. But he aged, broke a fibula, had bone spurs surgically removed from his ankles. You don't start 169 NFL games (playing in 204 altogether), ramming your 310-pound body at full speed into another 70 times or so per game, each impact as forceful as a minor car accident, without the hits and collisions damaging your body and psyche.
The theme of this NFL special section is not a favorite topic of veteran players. Who likes to be reminded they're aging in a young man's game?
Although the compensation and rewards for playing this game are beyond anything Joe Six-Pack could imagine, there's a reason the job of NFL player is ranked among the worst by the reference book "Jobs Rated Almanac."
The job's occupational hazards cripple bodies and minds.
The average NFL player's career lasts fewer than four years. Some play longer, much longer, but it becomes harder in a player's 30s, when leg fatigue becomes more acute, said Hall of Fame defensive end Jack Youngblood; consequently, quickness, concentration and reaction time suffer.
Older players heal slower, too.
"No longer is Tuesday (following a game) when you're ready to go," said Youngblood, who played in seven straight Pro Bowls for the Rams. "It becomes Wednesday, it becomes Thursday when you feel you're back up to speed."
"You notice over the years this (body) does not ever feel right," Whitfield said. "But then you understand that I guess that it's never going to feel right, so how do I play with it?"
With a cocktail of drugs, a resolute will and the ability to perform mental gymnastics.
"I'm one of the oldest guys on the team," said Whitfield, who started a franchise-record 123 consecutive games for the Falcons. "How many practices do I miss? I don't miss any. My (body) hurts all the time, but I don't miss practice. ... Even when it hurt, it don't hurt, so you're going to have to break it to hurt it. You just don't feel the pain, and do whatever it takes not to be hampered by it.
"A lot of it is psychological. You know when you can't go. Until I can't walk, I can go. Because I'd rather be in the game and get broke up then be sitting on the sideline thinking, Well, maybe I can go a little bit. (Forget) that."
Youngblood famously played in 3 1/2 games with a broken leg. After he suffered a stress fracture of his fibula in the 1979 divisional playoffs against Dallas, trainers shot Youngblood up, taped him up, and he returned to play, sacking Roger Staubach. Youngblood played every down the following weeks in the NFC Championship Game and Super Bowl XIV (with a two-week break afterward, he even played in the Pro Bowl).
Youngblood, who played in a franchise-record 201 straight games for the Rams and missed just one game in his 14-year career, retired when he was 34, though he had 9.5 sacks in his final year.
"I left the game with something left in the tank, but I didn't feel as thoughI could play at the same level for an entire season," Youngblood said. "I could have gotten double-digit sacks.
The goal was always 16. It would be a detriment to what I had already established." Youngblood chose to retire.
The thing about aging in the NFL: The choice is usually made for you because players' bodies shout out messages their minds ignore.
"I don't care how good you are -- you could be a Hall of Famer -- you play the game long enough, you're going to get replaced," said Joe Cribbs, the former Buffalo Bills Pro Bowl running back. "That's just the nature of the way football is organized. "A professional athlete never sees it coming."
They feel it, though
David E. Garnett
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