Tom McHale died of an overdose. The real story is that he was found to have suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

This disease is caused by repeated concussions, and once it starts, without any further trauma, the brain begins an inexorable decay that always ends in death.

McHale was a nine-year veteran of the National Football League. In fact, the biopsied brains of five other NFL veterans who died between the ages of 25 and 50 showed evidence of the same malady.

Additionally, there are more than 120 one time NFL players who are plaintiffs in lawsuits claiming the NFL did not do enough to make them aware of the dangers of concussions.

For many years, the NFL denied concussions in football games had any connection to future brain injuries. (As of 2010, warning posters appeared in all NFL locker rooms.)  

There is more to this story: The average NFL player, whose career lasts about four years, will live about 20 years less than the average American. And, it appears that the more that you play, the sooner you die.

Clearly there is something hypocritical about Sean Peyton being punished for rewarding “cart-offs” to the sidelines by Roger Goodell and the NFL, who, by denial and neglect, contributed to cart-offs to the morgue.

As the character Mercutio said in Romeo and Juliet, “A curse on both their houses.”

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.