The question we can’t avoid after what happened to Damar Hamlin

Odds are, you’ve never seen the photograph.

It exists, in the archives of the Detroit Free Press, a harrowing black-and-white image that found itself atop page 1D of the Oct. 25, 1971 morning newspaper.

There, lying face down on a muddy field, rests the body of Chuck Hughes, Detroit Lions wide receiver, who moments earlier ran 15 yards into the Chicago Bears secondary, stopped, grabbed with both hands at his chest, then collapsed to his stomach.

Wrote George Puscas, the Free Press’ executive sports editor: “From the moment Dick Butkus,...