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Ex-Seahawk fights team over painkiller handouts that kept him playing NFL games while hurt

Jerry Wunsch used to plow into the biggest, strongest players the National Football League had to offer.

Now, the onetime Seahawks offensive tackle struggles to walk a few blocks, climb stairs at his Florida home, or tie his size-17 shoes. The 43-year-old divorced father of three suffers debilitating headaches, forgets what he did a week ago, can’t keep a steady job and worries his two teenage sons and younger daughter will someday need to put him in institutional care.

His knees and lower back strain as a wincing Wunsch, 6-foot-6 and pushing 400 pounds, rises from a chair at his lawyer’s office in Edmonds.