Organized Mayhem

The conclusion that there is a greater incidence of memory related diseases among former NFL players relative to the general population hardly comes as a surprise. With players bigger, stronger, and faster it couldn't be anything else. Football, as George F. Will noted, is organized mayhem, inherently violent and not susceptible to changes without interfering with the basic nature of the game.

A study commissioned by the National Football League reports that Alzheimer’s disease or similar memory-related diseases appear to have been diagnosed in the league’s former players vastly more often than in the national population — including a rate of 19 times the normal rate for men ages 30 through 49.