Playing professional football is very rough on the body. Players can become crippled in a single play. Some are able to play for many years, putting their bodies through a lot of abuse.
It affects the mind as well, which is why suicide rates and drug addiction rates are higher in former NFL players than the national averages. It’s no wonder that the average life expectancy of former NFL players is under 60.
With all that said, former players still die from something. Lately, we’ve seen more and more of them dying from unknown or unreported causes. The latest death is former New York Jet Marvin Powell. According to the team’s website:
Marvin Powell, the outstanding Jets right tackle in the last Seventies through the mid-Eighties and one of the most decorated offensive linemen in franchise history, died Friday at the age of 67.
Powell was named to five consecutive Pro Bowls, was named All-Pro three times and selected Jets team MVP once. All that after being selected by the Jets in the first round, fourth overall, out of Southern California in the 1977 NFL Draft.
“Marvin was one of the best linemen I’ve ever seen,” said former Jets WR Wesley Walker upon hearing of Powell’s passing. “He was just a physical specimen. He was just good. I just loved him.”
Walt Michaels, Powell’s first Jets head coach, called him “the strongest player on the squad” after the 1978 season. “He has great potential and I think he’s just beginning to find himself.”
Nowhere in the long article or any other news reports on Powell is the cause of death indicated. It could always be the aforementioned suicide or drug overdose. It could have been natural causes. But in our current age of deceit when Covid vaccine deaths are covered up with everything the powers-that-be have, it behooves us to question every mysterious death until a cause is reported.