Greatest threat to football

SI's Peter King on Dave Duerson (h/t wdg):

My year in review is coming. But first a few words on Dave Duerson. The former Bears' All-Pro starting safety shot himself in the chest Thursday after texting family members to be sure, after death, that his brain was harvested and analyzed for the kind of degenerative brain condition that has been found to be increasingly common in some former football players....

Duerson, 50, was a four-year starter at Notre Dame, graduated on time with a degree in economics, won the NFL Man of the Year award in 1987, earned a seat on the Notre Dame Board of Trustees in 2001, worked with the NFL Players Association, and then saw much of his personal and professional success waste away in the past five years. Most of his football friends, in interviews over the past few days, said they were shocked by the dramatic turn of events in Duerson's life that resulted in his decline and suicide.
"Mr. Duerson's decision to donate his brain for research will help a lot of people,'' Nowinski said. "It's an admirable decision to make at a time in his life that I can't imagine the hardship he was going through.''

This is much the same problem boxing suffers from, but with so many more people playing football, it will affect many more people.