Sorry. My friend’s older brother was killed playing football. Way back in the 60s. They didn’t have good helmets and his helmet came back and broke his neck. Ruined my friend. He idolized his brother. We all did. Took any fun out of football for me.
I understand your frame of reference then. Protective gear steadily improved form ~70’s to 2000ish. I’m unaware of major upgrades since. It’s hard to imagine these guys playing the game with leather “helmets” and not much else back in the day. Though it was a different game then.