Laura posted a front page story earlier about comments from former NFL player and Packers CEO Mark Murphy.
As she noted, a three-year career gets NFL players just five years of health care, and quite possibly 5+ fewer years of life expectancy, too.
I'm not sure entirely what the ideal solution is, but I can at least point out one reason why things are the way they are right now.
Quite simply, NFL players are much bigger, and much stronger, than they used to be.
Consider offensive lineman John "Hog" Hannah, who played left guard for the Patriots from 1973 to 1985. [For those of you who don't know what that means, he stands immediately to the left of the guy who hikes the ball to the QB, from the QB's POV. Wikipedia has more on what a left guard does.]
in the (the second offensive lineman from the quarterback's left) in the 1970s. In 1981 Sports Illustrated called him "The Best Offensive Lineman of All Time." He stood 6'2.5", which might be a bit on isn't too far out of range of today's offensive linemen.
But he only weighed about 265 pounds.
The starting left guard for the Patriots when the 2010 season opened, Dan Connolly, is 6'4" . . . and weighs about 315 pounds. That's 50 pounds more muscle, bone, and fat pounding into a defensive lineman on every snap Connolly plays.
And it's not like things haven't been similar on the defensive side of the ball.
As but one example, here's a look at what happened to the average weight of NFL defensive linemen from 1935 to 1995:
1935: ~200 lbs
1950: ~230 lbs
1965: ~250 lbs
1980: ~255 lbs
1995: ~275 lbs
Today, it's not uncommon to see defensive linemen weighing 295-300 lb (for the ends trying to rush the QB) and 310-340 lb (for the tackles in the middle).
And now picture these mammoths slamming into each other as quickly as possible . . . 50-75 times a game.
It's almost a miracle that there aren't many more injuries and complications than there are. That said, there is absolutely no excuse for the NFL not to do much more for the players that have made its success possible. As it is, they are vastly underpaid relative to MLB and NBA players, and far more likely to suffer post-career complications.