Does Borland’s choice spell doom for NFL?

I’m the worst of fair-weather sports fans.

I’ll watch parts of Wimbledon, the Final Four, the Masters, the Olympics, the Kentucky Derby and not much else in between. I’ll watch the World Series if the Reds are playing.

I’m one of those obnoxious people who get interested in a sporting event only when it becomes a national phenomenon or a unique human interest story of some kind. If a horse has a shot at the Triple Crown, I can be a horse racing fan for a while. If a Cinderella team is making its way through the brackets, I can waste a few nights on basketball. I can even watch the World Cup if Team USA has a shot.

But, like millions of other Americans, if strapped to a couch, I prefer football over any other sport. And the decision by Chris Borland to leave football in the prime of his career is enough to make even the casual fan sit up and take notice.

In a way, it’s an anti-sports story: It might mark the beginning of the end for football.

Borland, only 24 and one of the best young players in the NFL, announced his retirement this week from the San Francisco 49ers, where he seemed destined to excel and collect gigantic paychecks for years to come. Why did he quit? Because he didn’t want to risk brain damage down the line.

“I just thought to myself, ‘What am I doing? Is this how I’m going to live my adult life, banging my head, especially with what I’ve learned and knew about the dangers?’” Borland told ESPN Monday.

Anyone who becomes involved in football at any level realizes that the game entails risk of bodily harm. It’s a contact sport, and the risk of broken bones, torn ligaments and tendons, and other potentially crippling injuries have been an accepted risk – not to mention one of the reasons for the big paydays – for many players.

But the long-term risk of repeated concussions and other head injuries is just coming to be more fully understood. And the results can be far more frightening, everything from early dementia to inducement to suicide to premature death.

A number of professional players have left football after suffering concussions and other injuries. But Borland might be the first to leave before he has suffered serious injury and specifically to avoid such an injury on the field.

He reportedly “had his bell rung” at training camp last fall, and kept playing. But the knock got him thinking about his future.

He reportedly painstakingly studied the literature on football-related head injuries and concluded that he didn’t want to risk the potential disability. In short, he didn’t make the decision lightly.

How could he? At stake was the glory, the fun, the fame and the possibility of millions and millions of dollars.

Many men his age would have taken that now even with the chance of diminished brain capacity later. For that, if for no other reason, Borland’s choice was a courageous and thoughtful one.

No one is predicting that scores of other good young players will scramble to follow Borland out the stadium exits. But it might plant the seed of doubt about pursuing an NFL career in the heads of many current and up-and-coming players.

It also might make many parents think twice about letting their children play football. Other sports offer most of the same benefits without the same potential of brain injury and early death.

Look what happened to boxing. Muhammad Ali, who drew many, including me, to the sport, now is the epitome of what was wrong with it. It is widely believed that a lifetime of blows to the head contributed to his debilitating Parkinson’s Disease.

Boxing, once a mainstream, highly popular and glamorous sport, now is watched by few. For many, it may seem a little odd to recall how avidly we watched two men bashing each other’s brains in.

Football won’t follow boxing to the dustbin overnight. That won’t happen quickly with a sport as insanely popular as football.

But Borland offers the first faint sign that football is not immortal.

This story was originally published March 19, 2015 at 8:26 PM with the headline "Does Borland’s choice spell doom for NFL?."