Dolphins legend Jason Taylor, for example, grew up right before our eyes, from a skinny Akron kid to a future Hall of Famer, his very public path out in front of those lights for 15 years. But take a look at what was happening in the dark. He was just a few blessed hours from having his leg amputated. He played games, plural, with a hidden and taped catheter running from his armpit to his heart. His calf was oozing blood for so many months, from September of one year to February of another, that he had to have the equivalent of a drain installed. This is a story of the private pain endured in pursuit of public glory, just one mans broken body on a battlefield littered with thousands of them. As death and depression and dementia addle footballs mind, persuading some of the gladiators to kill themselves as a solution to end all the pain, and as the media finally shines a light on footballs concussed skull at the very iceberg-top of the problem, we begin the anatomy of Taylors story at the very bottom
with his feet.
