Former Steelers center Jeff Hartings started using painkillers early in his football career, a practice that only increased over the course of his 11-year, 162-game career. By the time he was 33 and playing his final season with the Steelers, he was taking pain-killing shots on a weekly basis, just to stay on the field.
“It was the direct reason I retired,” said Mr. Hartings, 44. “I had to take so many drugs. I knew it wasn’t healthy.”
Mr. Hartings described the National Football League as a culture with rampant use of painkillers, a depiction that was spelled out in a Washington Post story late Thursday that detailed a previously sealed lawsuit.