BOULDER, Colo. — In the mid-1970s, Bob Carmichael was a fast-rising man at NFL Films, a lieutenant in the young empire that was the National Football League. A former major-college football player, he helped produce those gloriously rich tapestries of athleticism, the long slow spirals set against azure skies, the leaping, twisting grabs by receivers and the thunderous hits.
It was the sounds that haunted his sleep.
On the sideline, as he shot his film, he heard knees crack, shoulders splinter. Helmets and heads recoiled, one off the other, and off ice-hard turf.