{"id":737259,"date":"2013-02-05T14:01:30","date_gmt":"2013-02-05T19:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webpronews.com\/?p=215091"},"modified":"2013-02-05T14:01:30","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T19:01:30","slug":"walt-sweeney-dies-former-charger-was-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/737259","title":{"rendered":"Walt Sweeney Dies: Former Charger Was 71"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walt Sweeney, a former offensive lineman for the San Diego Chargers, has died<\/a> of pancreatic cancer. He was 71 years old. <\/p>\n

Sweeney was known as a standout player<\/a> in the ’60s and ’70s and had nine AFL All-Star Games and Pro Bowl Games to his credit. He spent a whopping eleven seasons with the Chargers and two with the Redskins, and played 181 consecutive games in his career. <\/p>\n

But the talented athlete had a dark side to his life which was perhaps brought on by overdoing it on the field; in the mid-’90s, Sweeney claimed he was hooked on pain medication that the NFL forced upon him and sued. A judge ruled<\/a> that he be paid $1.8 million, but the ruling was later overturned on appeal. <\/p>\n

In the past few years, more and more people are taking a look at the practices of the NFL regarding how the players are treated for injuries, particularly wounds to the head. Last year, after Junior Seau died<\/a> of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, his brain was autopsied<\/a> for injuries and it was discovered that he suffered from something called CTE<\/a>, which is caused by multiple blows to the head. CTE causes dementia and depression, which his family believes led to his suicide. They are currently involved in a lawsuit with the NFL. <\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walt Sweeney, a former offensive lineman for the San Diego Chargers, has died of pancreatic cancer. He was 71 years old. Sweeney was known as a standout player in the ’60s and ’70s and had nine AFL All-Star Games and Pro Bowl Games to his credit. He spent a whopping eleven seasons with the Chargers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-35Nh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}