Football Players Take Hits, Don't Always Bounce Back

Jan. 20, 2007 — -- Players endure tough practices and a brutal season in hopes of reaching the Super Bowl, arguably America's biggest annual sporting event, drawing millions of viewers.

However, the physical beating that a player's body experiences during any NFL football game may bring upon what is ahead when the games are over, the lights are off and it's time to hang up the cleats.

In 2003, the average NFL player was listed at 6-feet-1.5 inches, 245.2 pounds, often with the ability to run 40 yards between 4 and 5 seconds. That kind of mass in concert with that kind of acceleration is the standard scientific definition of force. That force is exerted for a full hour of playing time in the way of hitting, pushing and tackling.

An NFL career often ends with aches, pains and ailments that can stay with ex-players for the rest of their lives.

In 1988, during a game against the Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions fullback Scott Williams took a hit that knocked his shoulder out of place. A trainer aligned it and sent him back to finish the game. The following week against Dallas, he dove for a fumbled snap and it came out again, resulting in major surgery and a shortened career.

"That was the major injury that I had in the NFL," Williams said. "I probably have 90 percent of the range of motion."

Williams is now a sales executive for Turner Broadcasting System in Atlanta, and says he works out four to five times a week to keep that 90 percent range and to stay in shape.

Three years after that game, teammate Mike Utley on Nov. 17, 1991, suffered a far more memorable injury during a game against the Los Angeles Rams. Williams remembers the day and the play very well.

"Yes sir, horrible injury," he said. "It looked like he slid off of a block and fell to the turf, landing on the crown of his helmet. It was a freak accident that left him paralyzed."