Sport: Striking While the Owners Are Cool

At its best, pro football has become a beastly game, overgrown to the point that last season's 263-lb. center for the Washington Redskins was summarily judged too small for the post this year. "Strength" coaches credit the Nautilus exercise machines, but not even Jules Verne could stand beside a modern lineman and imagine this is a product of natural nutrition. The rate at which these superhuman beings injure one another has gone beyond the level of an epidemic, and the extent of the owners' compassion was expressed last week by the wife of Jack Kent Cooke. Asked if her husband gets...