Extra NFL games will only hurt the players

Let's see if we've got this straight.

1. The NFL concussion rate is so serious that Congress is looking into it. 2. Many NFL teams are now playing on a synthetic turf that, according to one study, has an injury rate that is 27 percent higher than on grass. 3. The lifespan of an NFL player is about 20 years shorter than the average American male. 4. Players are bigger and faster and harder-hitting (read: more dangerous) than ever.

So what does the NFL want to do?

Add two more games to the regular season.

Doesn't this just sound like a perfect storm of events for increasing the injury rate, not reducing it?

On Sunday, two Redskins' defenders crushed Michael Vick like a walnut and knocked him out of the game, perhaps for weeks. The Giants bounced Jay Cutler's head off the turf like a basketball, and he exited the game with a concussion. Then they did the same to his replacement, Todd Collins. Five starting quarterbacks have already been sidelined by injuries after just four weeks of the season.

Running backs Ray Rice, Reggie Bush, Clinton Portis, Ryan Grant, Chris Johnson and Ryan Matthews are already gimpy or gone. Superstar receiver Andre Johnson was unable to play last week because of an ankle injury, and All-Pro safety Bob Sanders is out for the year.

It's no wonder. Thirty years ago, there was one player in the entire NFL who weighed 300 pounds. In the last few years, there have been as many as 400 of them in fall camp. And yet players are faster than ever. On Sunday, the Bears' 6-foot-7, 283-pound Julius Peppers ran down Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw from behind before the latter could turn the corner on a sweep. As if the game weren't fast enough, they play on a green carpet. Add steroids to the mix — c'mon, you don't think they're part of the game? — and, voila, you've got carnage.

One study revealed that the average life span of NFL players who play for five or more years is 55 (52 for linemen). They lose one to three years of their life expectancy for every year they play in the league.

The biggest problem, of course, is the damage inflicted to the brain. In 2003, impact recorders were placed in the helmets of the Virginia Tech football team. It was discovered that players totaled 3,300 blows to the head in practices and games. They sustained an average of 50 blows to the head during a game, with the average force of each blow about 40 times the force of gravity and some of them as high as 120 — or roughly the equivalent of a severe car crash. One or two such hits occur every game.