Playing in Pain in the N.F.L.

During the National Football Conference championship game this January, during the Atlanta Falcons’ victory over the Green Bay Packers, Alex Mack, the Falcons’ center, broke his fibula for the second time. When he broke it for the first time, in 2014, doctors put a plate in his leg. The second break landed just above the plate. There was some concern that he would be unable to play in the Super Bowl two weeks later, since a player normally misses six to eight weeks with that type of injury. But on the day of the Super Bowl ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Mack would be given a painkiller shot. He started the game. It was the Super Bowl, after all, and football players are celebrated for playing through pain. (The Falcons did not respond to a request for comment.) “I just know his toughness and strength is so great,” the Falcons head coach, Dan Quinn, told reporters.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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