Football fans are gearing up for the NFL regular season, whichkicks off this Thursday night as the Green Bay Packers take on theSeattle Seahawks. But as a new season begins, there is no denyingthe reality of injuries for many NFL football players.

The game is extremely physical, which has been evident fordecades, and it is no surprise that being a player in the NFL comeswith considerable physical risk. But in recent years the mentalhealth problems related to concussions have come to the forefront,and a lawsuit filed against the league by NFL players and veteransis gaining momentum.

Concussions figure to be the NFL's hot-button issue of 2014.

Many retired players are feeling the cognitive effects of theirtime in the NFL, dealing with symptoms including short-term memoryloss, headaches, depression and anger. A recent study commissioned by the NFL reported thatAlzheimer's disease and other memory-related diseases are diagnosedin former NFL players at a rate of 19 times more than the normalrate for men ages 30 to 49. Furthermore, Chronic TraumaticEncephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease diagnosedpostmortem, is found more often in NFL players or individuals witha history of repeated concussions and other head injuries.

[Related: InvisibleKiller: How Legal Fallout from Traumatic Brain Injuries May ForeverChange the Way Sports Are Insured]

Yet the NFL has long denied the existence of reliable dataconcerning the cognitive decline of current and former players, andmore and more league veterans are speaking out against the league,disclosing their ailments, stories, and difficulties stemming fromhead traumas throughout their careers.

Click through the following slides for nine stories from NFLveterans and active players who have spoken out against the dangersof the game.

Ray Easterling in 2004.

Ray Easterling

Former safety for the Atlanta Falcons, Ray Easterling, filed alawsuit against the NFL in 2011 and would later be joined by morethan 4,500 current and former players who claim that the leagueengaged in a “concerted effort of deception and denial” in itshandling of concussions and brain trauma.

Easterling committed suicide at the age of 62 and was diagnosedwith CTE following his death.

(Photo: Cherokee Tribune)

Junior Seau

Suicides in the NFL have followed a similar pattern toEasterling's. Loss of memory, as well as sharp and violent tempers,have led many former players to slip into depression, and sometimeseven inflict self-harm.

Junior Seau, a former linebacker for the San Diego Chargers,Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots, resorted to suicide toescape the traumas associated with CTE. The 12-time Pro Bowler shothimself in the chest in May 2012. CTE was confirmed in Seau'sautopsy.

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

One of many concussions: WayneChrebet lays unconscious after he took a hit on areception.

Wayne Chrebet

New York Jets receiver Wayne Chrebet was knocked out cold duringa game against the New York Giants in November 2003. After beingexamined by the Jets' team doctor, who was also head of the NFL'sMild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) Committee, he was sent back intothe game.

It was a pattern of denial, he says now. Chrebet was forced toretire from football at 32 after suffering too manyconcussions.

In 2004, the MTBI committee published a paper in Neurosurgery,emphasizing that the NFL's concussion problem is relatively small.According to the paper, “a total of 92% of concussed players returnto practice in less than seven days,” and more than half of playersreturned to play within a day of the incident, as symptomsgenerally dissipated in a “short time in the vast majority ofcases.”

Chrebet, and many others, would likely argue otherwise.

(AP Photo/Tim Larsen)

Mike Webster

Mike Webster, who played in the NFL for years with thePittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs, filed a disabilityapplication with the NFL Retirement Board in 1999 after strugglingwith cognitive problems. Webster claimed that his NFL career haslead to dementia. The Board ruled that Webster's head injuries,which have left him “totally and permanently disabled,” are simplythe “result of head injuries he suffered as a football player.”

Webster's attorney claimed that the ruling shows the leagueshould have known there was a link between football and braindamage.

“If the NFL takes the position that they didn't know or weren'tarmed with evidence that concussions can cause totaldisability—permanent disability, permanent brain injury—in 1999,that evidence trumps anything they say.”

Webster died in 2002 at age 50.

Allegheny County medical examiner Dr. Bennet Omalu took a closerlook at Webster's brain during his autopsy, discovering the firstevidence of a brain disease that had never been previouslyidentified in football players, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy,or CTE. Sports medicine researcher at the University of NorthCarolina Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz subsequently published a paper thatsuggested that repeat concussions may lead to slower recovery ofneurological functioning.

The paper reads, “our study suggests that players with a historyof previous concussions are more likely to have future concussiveinjuries than those with no history; one in 15 players with aconcussion may have additional concussions in the same playingseason; and pervious concussions may be associated with slowerrecovery of neurological function,” sparking the rise in researchon concussions in the NFL.

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Terry Long

Former Steeler Terry Long committed suicide by drinkingantifreeze in June 2005. Dr. Omalu later reported that he hadfound CTE in Long's brain as well.

Dr. Joseph Maroom, Steelers team doctor and a future memberof the MTBI committee, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette thatOmalu's conclusion that Long's suicide may have been the result ofdepression caused by head traumas throughout his NFL career was“fallacious reasoning.”

“To go back and say that he was depressed from playing in theNFL and that led to his death 14 years later, I think is purelyspeculative,” Maroon says in the paper. “He could have had a headinjury that wasn't reported before football….And that's why I'msaying it's so speculative.”

Other MTBI committee members Dr. Ira Casson and Dr. David Viano,along with Dr. Elliot Pellman, requested that Neurosurgeryretrace Omalu's CTE paper, stating, “Omalu et al's description ofchronic traumatic encephalopathy is completely wrong. The diagnosisof a chronic condition requires a medical history indicating along-standing nature of illness [and] such a history is completelylacking in Omalu's report.”

Dr. Omalu followed up with a second paper afterdiscovering CTE in Long, and as with Mike Webster, he linksdepression with the players' long NFL careers.

(AP Photo/File)

Ricky Watters

Super Bowl Champion Ricky Watters addressed fans as an honorarycaptain before the Philadelphia Eagles played the Detroit Lions in2012, revealing that he would forever suffer pain from head to toeas a result of his playing days.

Over his career in the NFL, Watters suffered his fair share ofinjuries. He tore his right medial collateral ligament and leftposterior cruciate ligament, causing him severe knee pain. He alsohas five pins in his right ankle and one in his right foot, and ametal plate envelops his femur. His index finger was shattered andnever properly healed, robbing him of his favorite hobbies: drawingand painting.

Watters' physical ailments don't stop there. He also suffersfrom an undiagnosed crack in his sternum, back issues, arthritisand failing kidneys at only 43 years of age. Like many of formerNFL players, Watters, too, suffers headaches, fatigue,forgetfulness, and other symptoms associated with head trauma.

Watters has admitted to playing without his full mentalfaculties “hundreds of times,” and is one of the plaintiffs in thelawsuit against the NFL.

(AP Photo/Scott Iskowitz)

John Mackey

This Hall of Famer and tight end for the Baltimore Colts and SanDiego Chargers served as the first head of the NFL PlayersAssociation.

Mackey also suffered from frontotemporal dementia after he leftthe game, which made him confused, paranoid and angry. At the ageof 65, he entered an assisted-living facility, and Mackey passedaway at the age of 69.

The autopsy report showed clear evidence of CTE.

(AP Photo/ Steve Ruark)

Ted Johnson

The New England Patriots' Ted Johnson told the New York Times, in the wake of his retirementin 2005, that he suffers from memory loss, an addiction toamphetamines and agoraphobia after suffering two concussions in thesame week in August 2002.

Johnson claims that Coach Bill Belichick sent him back on thefield for regular contact play four days later, against advice fromthe Patriots' team trainer. Belichick told The Boston Globe that Johnson shouldhave said something. “If Ted felt so strongly that he didn't feelhe was ready to practice with us, he should have told me,”Belichick said.

(AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Joe DeLamielleure with his wifeGerri at their home.

Joe DeLamielleure

Though CTE cannot be definitively diagnosed until an autopsy hasbeen performed, Joe DeLamielleure knows he is showing earlysymptoms: depression, short-term memory loss and anger issues.

After 13 years in the NFL, DeLamielleure knows he has CTE andestimates he has suffered hundreds—possibly more than athousand—concussions throughout his football career. He was alsoone of the first former NFL players to donate his brain to BostonUniversity following his death; some 500 NFL veterans have sincefollowed suit. So far, CTE has been found in 18 of the 19 formerplayers whose brains have been studied.

A major critic of the NFL and NFLPA for their treatment ofretired players, DeLamielleure is an advocate for solutions tomental health problems plaguing his fellow veterans.

The question for many NFL players becomes: Is it worth it?

DeLamielleure answers, “No.”

Sporting News subsequently asked former players whether if,knowing what they do now about the risks associated with their NFLcareers, they would do it all over again. DeLamiellure was one ofnine players who said “no.” A tenth player remarked, “I don't thinkso,” and another said, “I don't know.”

But these men seem to be in the minority. Of the 125 playerssurveyed, 96 players answered affirmatively.

Some responded with utter enthusiasm.

“Absofrickinlutely!” offensive lineman Jim Sweeney wrote. AndHall of Famer Jack Youngblood, who is experiencing memory andcognitive issues remarked that he would do it over again, “in aminute.” “Being the President of the United States isn't anywherenear that. There is nothing like playing on Sunday,” Youngbloodsaid.

Many who said that they would do it over again remarked thatthey would choose that path because of the thrill of playing infront of adoring fans, and others claim that they could not imaginetheir lives without the lasting friendships that stemmed from theirNFL career.

However, 15 players who said “yes,” admitted that they wouldhave retired sooner, tried not to hit their heads so much, wouldtry not to be so tough and would listen to their doctors.

(AP Photo/Bob Leverone)