"Football is not a contact sport," legendary Michigan State University coach Duffy Daugherty once explained. "It is a collision sport. Dancing is a good example of a contact sport."

Football players are susceptible to a wide range of injuries, from muscle and ligament tears to concussions and broken bones (source). When you're taking hits like this, it's not surprising.

Whether or not you actually get lit up like a Christmas tree, you're still susceptible to brain injury.

A recent study examines the brains of seventy-nine deceased professional football players and found seventy-six cases of degenerative brain disease (source). Ouch. These are not the kind of odds we like to hear. 

It's not necessarily the huge hits that cause this, but repeated low-impact contact over time.

The NFL and the NCAA have a tendency to underestimate the extent of these injuries, so know the risks before going further.