Career Ending Football Injuries

Injuries are commonplace in professional football. The full contact sport dresses players in armor and sends them rushing at, bashing into and crushing one another on a weekly basis. Despite this, good sportsmanship, safety regulations and ample padding all serve as a buffer between players and career-ending injuries. Yet no system is perfect, and players still suffer career-ending NFL injuries.

  1. Concussions

    • Concussions have been known to end the careers of some of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. A concussion is an injury to the brain resultant of a violent blow or shake to the body. Concussions commonly occur when someone is hit hard enough to cause the brain to rattle against the skull. While a number of NFL players have suffered concussions over the year, they have been proven to be career ending injuries in the cases of both quarterback Steve Young of the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman.

    Paralysis

    • Paralysis from plays gone horribly wrong has ended the career of a handful of NFL players. Violent or awkward tackles can seriously damage nerves and vertebrae to paralyze a player. Right guard Mike Utley famously suffered paralysis during a game when his sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae were damaged during a freak accident. Darryl Stingley is another famous case of this. The New England Patriots receiver suffered a broken neck after a strong tackle from Jack Tatum of the Oakland Raiders. Stingley became a quadriplegic and was in a wheelchair for life.

    Vertebrae and Spinal Chord Injuries

    • Vertebrae and spinal chord injuries are causes of paralysis, though merit their own category in the pantheon of career-ending football injuries for being involved in non-paralysis cases like that of Sterling Sharpe. Sharpe was a wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers until his retirement on account of a vertebrae injury during the 1994 season. During a routine play, Sharpe’s neck snapped back, loosening two vertebrae in his neck. A tackle in the subsequent game exacerbated the situation, causing numbness and tingling in Sharpe’s limbs. Even after emergency surgery, Sharpe was unable to return to the NFL.