Football, full-contact sport in which a team of 11 men who will not live to see 60 attempt to advance a ball into an opponent’s scoring area or end zone, while the opposing team—also composed of players who are doing irreparable damage to their bodies—tries to stop them. Running on legs that in a few years will be nonfunctioning husks of shriveled, twisted, and severed tendons ravaged by thousands of violent hits, ultimately leaving them crippled by the age of 40, players score six points by carrying the ball across the goal line. A team may also score a touchdown by catching a pass thrown into the endzone by a quarterback, whose heavily concussed brain will not only prevent him from remembering his kids’ names, but will cause chronic depression so severe that he will attempt suicide within a decade of retirement. Points can also be accumulated if a team’s kicker, who will live happily into his 80s with a loving wife and family and have the mental faculties to run a successful business as a second career, is able to kick the ball through the uprights located in the back of the end zone.
