Y. A. Tittle passes away at 90

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The picture was tucked away, but it always stood out. It was in the trophy room of Y.A. Tittle's house just south of San Francisco. The room was painted red, and there were dozens of trophies, a handful of old footballs, so dry they seemed chapped, and on the wall, next to his four framed Sports Illustrated covers and his Hall of Fame plaque, was the picture for which Tittle is most famous: of him helmet-less and on his knees, having thrown an interception that was returned for a touchdown by the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sept. 20, 1964, with streams of blood trickling down the topography of his forehead and cheek, a picture that not only forever framed Tittle as the embodiment of a broken warrior but also forever romanticized NFL players as broken down warriors. That picture could have been of anyone, his fate theirs, before we knew of the various agonies that would attend the post-playing life. The iconography of football pain isn't what it used to be. On a Sunday marked and marred by injury extreme by even NFL standards, of Odell Beckham Jr. in tears as he was carted away and of J.J. Watt almost in tears as he was too, Yelberton Abraham Tittle died at the age of 90, surrounded by family, friends, and the songs he loved, leaving us an old image as impossible to ignore as the new ones on our screens.

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http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20968918/ya-tittle-man-iconic-image