In case the connection between football and head trauma wasn’t strong enough:

[Chris] Henry, 26, had already developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the progressive brain disease whose recent discovery in some retired N.F.L. players has raised questions of football’s long-term safety risks.

…Like many of the other players found to have had C.T.E. after their deaths, Henry had behavioral problems in his final years that might have been at least partly a result of the disease, which is linked to depression, poor decision-making and substance abuse.

ESPN and PFT have more on. For background on CTE, check out the excellent GQ article “Game Brain” (which also documents the NFL’s concerted attempts to deny the condition, though the league seems to have come around on the issue) and this article of Gladwell’s, which is solid, despite a too-clever attempt to conflate football with dogfighting. CTE is also a possible explanation for the behavior of Chris Benoit, a former WWE wrestler who killed his wife and son before hanging himself.

If you’re too lazy to read any of those articles: CTE is caused by repeated blows to the head (not necessarily concussions), which produces a buildup of tau proteins in the brain. These proteins can cause dementia, paranoia, depression, suicidal behavior, memory loss, and volatility.

CTE is obviously a major concern for any sport where you have large athletes running into each other, and has the potential to destroy the game of football, the rare sport where contact is a necessity on every play. To see the condition in a twenty-six year old, especially one whose position involves the least contact on the team, is even more troubling. I really don’t see an easy solution to this problem.