American football’s NFL has encouraged players to give permission for their brains to be removed and used for scientific study at the end of their sporting lives. High-profile players such as Ben Roethlisberger, Brian Westbrook and Kurt Warner have already been convinced with surprising ease to sign up to the initiative, intended to examine the neurological effects of sustaining voluntary concussions on a weekly basis.

“It’s great that so many players have agreed to give their brains to science once they no longer have any use for them,” said Professor Mary Eckhart of Boston University. “I’m glad, too, that they didn’t insist on keeping them until the end of their natural lives, realising that on retirement the organs will be so battered as to be functionally useless.”

The NFL has come under increased scrutiny this season as players have left games with concussions in almost every week of the schedule. Former players have also spoken out against the league, including former linebacker Barry Grant, 63, who experiences constant pain and has lost all use of his bones.

“I wish I had never played the game,” he said, propped upright at his Florida home by an elaborate system of pulleys and counterweights. “It hurts every day, but they never warn you it might end this way.

“You would think that a quarter-inch plastic shell around the skull would be plenty to keep you safe when charging head-first into a 240-pound running back at full speed. It certainly makes a cool sound. I mean there are disclaimers on the packaging that say things like ‘NO HELMET CAN PREVENT SERIOUS HEAD OR NECK INJURIES A PLAYER MIGHT RECEIVE WHILE PARTICIPATING IN FOOTBALL’ in capital letters, but who pays attention to all that legal mumbo-jumbo?”

Grant himself has also agreed to donate his brain to scientific study, completing this interview just as the surgeons got to work. “It’s not like it does anything for me any more, so we might as well take it out and see just how bashed up it is,” he concluded.

According to Professor Eckhart, the work will benefit all future generations of players. “We’ll be able to show just what happens to the brain as a result of playing the sport,” she said. “And as an added bonus, once we’re done with them, the brains are just the right size and shape to be fashioned into new footballs, which would be a fitting tribute to players that gave their heart and soul, as well as many other body parts, to the game.”