These guys don't start playing football when they sign their rookie contract. Most pros have been playing since 5-6 years old, and as I said, I am more concerned about head trauma on developing brains. Frankly, I think any parent who lets his kid play football is an idiot.
And your free market/social darwinism outlook is one I might have shared even just a couple of years ago. No longer. Any person suffering from depression would gladly trade any material riches they have to be rid of it. Sadly, though, the damage was likely done to these individuals before they had ability to understand its ramifications.
Without an audience, without the promise of riches and fame, football would be consigned to the same area in our culture as fight clubs.
I would strongly discourage anyone in my immediate family from playing football also as well as para sailing and a lot of other high risk activities. As for depressives I have dealt with more than I care to among in-laws and friends of my parents. I basically want no part of them as the ones that I have had the misfortune to know seem to want to spread their personal misery around to all the rest of us. It is their problem if they are adults and there are medical treatments that work to one degree or another and they can pursue them. Life is to short to have any part it consumed by these tiresome people's misery. I don't expect anybody to take care of me and I intensely resent the ‘Bobby is sick, we have to be sensitive to him’ crapola. It is a form of emotional blackmail and extortion ‘loving’ relatives delight in visiting upon all family members. I send enough of my earnings off to the feds, the state and the local government to pay for official ‘caring’ agencies. That represents my precious time I have spent earning those dollars. Time is the one thing one never recovers and the notion that after paying out my time in taxes I am obliged to waste more of my life over some elses unhappiness makes be physically ill.