NFL star tires of risking health for our entertainment

Rashard Mendenhall kind of wanted to disappear, he told the world this past Sunday.

He’s 26 and, until lately, he had been an NFL running back at the Arizona Cardinals. He’s well-respected and a good deal sharper than the average 220-pounder condemned to a decade or so of clattering into a brick wall of linemen and linebackers.

(It does behove me to point out for the sake of balance that the workings of his brain did throw up a couple of kinks when he went on a rant about the September 11 attacks on Twitter almost three years ago.) Mendenhall was in that enviable position of being a free agent who could set himself up for a life free of financial troubles, if nothing else.