End Zone

Arbanas receives disability through his own business, Fred Arbanas Inc., a national phone-book advertising agency.

The NFL's disability board rejected his disability claim. That was so many years ago, Arbanas can't remember when he applied.

"The way they had it set up, it was almost impossible to get approved," Arbanas says. "I got two titanium shoulders. I've got a new hip. I've got to get another hip on the other side and then another knee. So there are a lot of problems. They said back then, 'Well, you didn't file soon enough to qualify.'"

Based on the NFL's standards, it's hard to imagine who would qualify. As Arbanas points out, "Normal people don't have both shoulders wear out and have to have titanium shoulders put in." And, he adds, "The equipment back then wasn't near as good as the equipment they have now. Plus, your head injuries back then, the word concussion was never mentioned. It was, 'I got my bell rung,' and you might not be able to think right for four or five days or a week."

The league later approved Arbanas for nonplaying disability, but he says it pays him little.

Last spring, Arbanas called the NFLPA's leader, Gene Upshaw, to talk about pensions and disability. Arbanas had played against Upshaw when Upshaw was with the Oakland Raiders, and the two had played together in Pro Bowl games. Arbanas says they had "a real nice conversation," but it didn't go anywhere.

Arbanas says he thought that Upshaw and other members of the players union knew him well enough to know he wasn't trying to cheat the league out of money for his injuries.

"To have guys from your own era ... turn you down, I don't think it's fair." With a first down in sight, Chiefs quarterback Trent Green scrambled. He cleared the necessary 5 yards before a pair of Cincinnati Bengals defenders zeroed in on him. Green spotted them and began a feet-first slide to avoid a bone-rattling hit. But as Green slid across the grass, Bengals defensive end Robert Geathers lowered his shoulder into Green's chest. Green's head whipped back as if he were a test dummy in a car crash, snapping violently against the turf.

Green didn't move for the next 11 minutes. A silent crowd stared at his limp body sprawled on the ground.

EMTs immobilized Green and rolled him off the field on a stretcher. He would be diagnosed with a concussion. After this first game of the 2006 season, he wouldn't play again until week 13. Against the Cleveland Browns, though, he wasn't the same. The Chiefs went on to lose four of six with Green as the starter. The team sneaked into the playoffs, only to be dominated by Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, who eventually won the Super Bowl.

The sight of Green crumpled on the field like roadkill was familiar to Chiefs fans. It was the second consecutive year that a prominent Chief was knocked out of the game, not to return for weeks. Trailing the San Diego Chargers 21-3 with nine minutes left in the third quarter on October 30, 2005, running back Priest Holmes took a handoff on a second-and-10 from the Chiefs' 9-yard line. After Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman cracked helmets with Holmes in the backfield, Merriman got up. Holmes didn't. Finally, a wobbly Holmes wandered off the field. Doctors diagnosed him with pressure on his spine, and he sat out the rest of the 2005 season and all of 2006. In fact, Holmes still hasn't played a down of football since Merriman's potentially career-killing hit. (Holmes is attempting a comeback this season. After he returned to training camp, the Chiefs placed him on the nonfootball injury list, meaning he cannot practice or play for the first six weeks of the season.)

Other players have been even less lucky.

The death of Mike Webster is widely cited as the most egregious example of the NFL disability plan's failures. He's also a case study in the effects of undiagnosed concussions on former football players.

Webster was the hard-nosed Hall of Fame center who earned the nickname "Iron Mike" and played 15 seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers between 1974 and 1988, helping the team win four Super Bowl championships in six years.

But Webster's legacy off the field may be more significant.

"Mike Webster got screwed so bad, you can't believe it," says Vince Costello, a '60s-era linebacker for the Cleveland Browns and the New York Giants. Costello later coached with the Chiefs and now lives in Shawnee. "They let him die."

Webster retired as a Steeler after the 1988 season. He wouldn't stay retired long.

In 1989, the Chiefs hired Carl Peterson as president and general manager. Peterson signed Webster and former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski to provide veteran leadership to a team that had gone 4-11 the previous year, says Bob Moore, public relations director for the Chiefs.

When the '89 season began, the undersized and 37-year-old Webster earned a position as the team's starting center. Moore hasn't forgotten the way Webster bolted out of huddles to the line of scrimmage. "He'd run like crazy to be the first guy at the line of scrimmage, no matter how tired he was or what type of game that it was," Moore says. "It was almost like a psychological thing to the other team. They'd see this guy running to the line and they're tired as hell, and this guy is still playing."