When Fred Smoot, a former Washington Redskins defensive back, fractured his sternum and had to spend four months sleeping in a recliner because he couldn’t lie flat, he said his team doctors gave him a choice: Miss the rest of the season or “figure out a way to play.” Worried about his livelihood, he made it on the football field each Sunday thanks to a syringe full of a drug called Toradol. “Painkillers are like popping aspirin,” Smoot said. “They get to that point.”
