By DERON SNYDER
The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press

SAN DIEGO - Sometimes it's difficult to determine which elements of football are most important. Is it blocking and tackling, passing and catching? Or is it maintaining your body and managing your pain?

It's probably the latter. The former is moot is if you can't stay on the field.

Pain and injuries are as much a part of the NFL as punts and touchdowns. And NFL players have gone to extreme lengths to play the violent game they love.

Ronnie Lott instructed trainers to cut off part of a finger so he could return to the action. Jack Youngblood played on a broken leg. Players subject themselves to more pills and shots than local clinics administer in one year.

No NFL linebacker has appeared in more consecutive games than the 242 played by Oakland's Bill Romanowski. And perhaps no NFL player goes through as much to keep playing at a high level.

"If only you knew how much goes into staying healthy," he said.

We take them for granted, the padded gladiators who thrill us with fearless aggression and high-speed collisions. We watch them fly around the field, hitting and getting hit, and we expect them to always get back up. And stay in the game. And play next week, too.

"Romo," aiming for his fifth Super Bowl ring, which would tie him with Charles Haley for the NFL record, estimates he spends $150,000 on a roster of health specialists. He also swears by the dozens of vitamins, minerals, herbs and supplements he pumps in his body each season.

Supplements have become a big part of players' health and fitness regimen, and, subsequently, a big problem when they contain banned substances such as ephedra.

"We're trying to work with a supplement company to meet our standards," said Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association. "We have to make sure that there's nothing in there that isn't on the label. That's not always the case with supplements."

The ravages of football aren't pretty. The game can leave players with useless limbs and broken bodies. We don't think about that too much when we're cheering their exploits on Sundays, but part of Upshaw's job entails thinking about it all the time.

All sorts of issues faced by NFL players never cross fans' minds. For instance, legislation in Virginia, supported by Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, would allow the team to reduce workers' compensation for injured players by the amount of salary already paid to the player.

The rise in medical malpractice suits is threatening to run off some of the league's best doctors. New federal laws regarding employees' right to privacy on medical issues - such as injuries and surgeries - could have an adverse effect on long-established NFL information-sharing procedures.

While Upshaw and the lawyers address those matters, Romanowski handles his own - namely, his body. He has eight to 10 specialists on retainer, including personal trainers, chiropractors, acupuncturists, masseuses and physical therapists. In addition to drinking a gallon of ionized water and popping 30 pills each day, Romanowski, 36, also ships samples of his stool to a North Carolina laboratory for analysis.

"I just bottle it up and sign my name to it and send it off," he said. "You can find different deficiencies, a lot of different things."

To say he's obsessed with his health and fitness is an understatement. And he brings the same level of fanaticism to his preparation.

"His work ethic is elite," Raiders coach Bill Callahan said. "His preparation starts at seven in the morning and, at times, I've seen him leave at seven at night. He's there the entire day. Even on a Friday when players get a chance to depart early, Bill Romanowski is still there in the facility until about six or seven at night. That's unique."

No one can argue with the results. Just having the opportunity for another Super Bowl ring makes all the stretching, soaking, massages and pills worthwhile for Romanowski.

"It's a way of life for me," Romanowski said. "Everything I take has a purpose. Without my body being finely tuned, I couldn't play this game. This is what I love to do, so that's why I do it."

That's something to think about on Sunday, when the bodies start flying.

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