Walter Payton Used Drugs/Suicidal

TMI, I don't want to know any of this stuff. I just want to remember the great player.

I agree. No reason to put out all this BS after the guy dies. Payton was and will be one of my all time favorite players ever. One of the best football players ever to step on to a field.

He could do it all on the field, run with power, run with speed, catch, block, even throw.

He was also the main reason I checked off organ donor on my license.

TMI, I don't want to know any of this stuff. I just want to remember the great player.

Agree, this TMZ sh*t is garbage. Guess thats what you gotta do to sell books and make a dollar off the back off a flat out hero to maybe millions. Well guess this is the culture we created, this country is great isnt it.

The book is about his entire life, and his entire life includes these things. I learned long ago to separate the player on the field from the person off the field. You kind of have to. Because of my job I know a lot that others here probably don't about a lot of today's (and yesterday's) athletes that not much surprises me (and I know so little really) but this Walter Payton news is kind of stunning though, perhaps as much as Kirby Puckett

18 games! 18 games! 18 games! "Our fans are excited about the prospect of an 18 game season."

Seriously how did the owners with a database full of cases similar to this ever consider putting together an 18 game season? Limiting head shots only does so much, I mean it helps but you'll still get terrible cases like this where guys basically become different people due to head trauma and addiction.

Owners don't give a shit about players health (long term). They really don't. They care about dollar signs and that's all they will continue to care about.

All I know is Walter was one of my all time favorites. The guy played with the worst OL line for years and still rushed for thousands of yards, punished defenses finishing runs. Obviously that took it's toll. Sad story.

I think this story is sad, but not as horrible as people hype it up to be. Life is tough folks. People have affairs, broken marriages, abuse drugs and go through some deep lows. The society we live in today has some major issues and Payton isn't the first to go through them. If anything, we should use this story as lesson that money and success isn't going to solve anything.

I think the sad part is the affect of injuries and continuous pounding. The NFL hasn't done a great job helping their vets, in general. So whenever the "No Fun League" actually has initiatives to prevent these kinds of occurrences (ex.penalties and fines for hits) I support it. For those that claim the game is changing and it won't be what it once was, I agree. We will have less stories of players in perpetual pain abusing drugs....

Not to derail this thread, but even with an 18 game season the plan is for the number of games to remain the same. 2 preseason and 18 regular, as opposed to the current 4 preseason and 18 regular. So this repeated argument at least one of you here has about adding two games doesn't really fly

I think this story is sad, but not as horrible as people hype it up to be. Life is tough folks. People have affairs, broken marriages, abuse drugs and go through some deep lows. The society we live in today has some major issues and Payton isn't the first to go through them. If anything, we should use this story as lesson that money and success isn't going to solve anything.

I think the sad part is the affect of injuries and continuous pounding. The NFL hasn't done a great job helping their vets, in general. So whenever the "No Fun League" actually has initiatives to prevent these kinds of occurrences (ex.penalties and fines for hits) I support it. For those that claim the game is changing and it won't be what it once was, I agree. We will have less stories of players in perpetual pain abusing drugs....

It's just surprising. It's like if we find out in 10 years that Peyton Manning had these kinds of problems.

WP had a pretty clean image prior to this news.

true dat, remember when Jim Brown basically called Franco Harris a pussy for runnin out of bounds? He said he admired Payton though.

plus he was classy all the way, played on sucky teams in the 70s & waited to be a part of a super bowl. Even gave up the spotlight in the backfield to the Fridge (speakin of former players w/problems).

I don't ever remember him promoting himself, his image just happened to be "squeaky clean" by the way he carried himself. More than anything to me, this shows how much the media coverage (which we consume like mad) has changed athletes' public image & privacy.

If Jim Brown thought Franco was a puss for running out of bounds i wonder what he thought about all of Emmitt Smiths fetile position plays along with running out of bounds... hmmmm.