Hypothetical scenario:
Let’s say that a pro football player caused a huge number of broken bones, concussions or other serious injuries every season through completely legal tackling methods. He causes four or five such injuries to opponents per game. He violates no rules, drug policies or any regulations.
Or, let’s say that some professional baseball player somehow possessed amazing batting accuracy that enabled him to maliciously bat the ball straight back directly at the pitcher, causing several serious injuries to opposing pitchers per game. Again, this isn’t illegal, and the player never violates any league rules, drug policies or other regulations.
How long would it take for such athletes to get suspended or banned? And how would the league justify the ban if the player didn’t do anything illegal - just say, “This player is too great a threat to be allowed to continue to play?”
I loved watching Dick Butkus play. Who was the other guy that he would team with? One would come head on at the runner to stand him up and the other from the side to cut him down while the stretcher was going out before the second hit ever happened?
Wait, really?
Never. If the player is playing perfectly legally, the collective bargaining agreements that the players union has with the league would never allow such a suspension.
Presumably football would try to change the rules to protect the players. I’m not sure what they’d do in baseball. You couldn’t legislate about hitting the ball at the pitcher as that would be presumed to be not controllable. They might require some protective wear or I suppose they could put a small fence like thing in front of the pitcher as is used during batting practice.
I don’t know who many times it actually happened.
I was watching a game at my parents a long time ago and the announcers, everyone in the house, everybody winced and went oooohhhhhhhhhhhh. 
Then one of the announcers started talking about it and said something about never never try to run down the sideline with Butkus on the field.
Right after that I read or saw something about how he would get himself into a rage of hate before each game.
probably back in the first ten yours of when they started having a Superbowl.
Also, back then Merlin Olson was playing and people would laugh when after he almost killed you, he would help you up and say he was sorry. He was in a group that was talked about sorta like the ‘fierceum foursome’.
Butkus also talked about it in some interviews I have seen over the years.
Fierceum? Fearsome, perhaps?
You got it. I can not remember who they were or even the team.
Thanks
Getting old sucks. 
I suppose some other opposing players may try to take matters into their own hands and injure the dangerous player to stop his mayhem.
The Rams. Along with Deacon Jones, Rosie Grier, and “some other guy”
Lamar Lundy, who deserved a better place in history than as a trivia question.
Thanks Elvis.
Does the union have power to actually overturn a suspension?
What if they refused to represent one particular player?
They’d just change the rules to make is less dangerous. It’s not just injury - if one team comes up with some awesome strategy that gives them a pretty clear advantage, either everyone will adopt it in pretty short order, or the rules will be changed. With injury, they wouldn’t just let everyone do it, so they would change the rules.
I should note this isn’t a hypothetical per se. In football, they did change the rules for roy williams: Horse-collar tackle - Wikipedia
They need simply hire Marley23 as referee!
If you are causing 4-5 season ending injuries* per game* I would bet that one team would just say ‘screw it’ and hire some low-talent, oversized goon whose sole purpose is the end your career with a horribly illegal and damaging blow of some kind.
The answer is probably a combination of changing the rules and tighter officiating. For the former, there’s plenty of examples of plays in football that used to be legal but no longer are because of safety concerns; there’s the aforementioned banning of horsecollar tackles, but much more recently was a ban on some leeways that the ball carrier had. So, if someone was doing something legal that could easily be stopped by a rule, they’d institute a new rule.
It’s also possible he’s just a freak of nature. There are some players, who just seem to hit harder than others and, as a result, probably cause more injuries. The way I’ve tended to see that get handled is the refs keep a closer eye on them and are more likely to call them for things they might let slide for other players. For instance, a normal player might incidentally hit with his helmet just before his shoulder and it would slide, but if you’re one of those types of players they might not let it slide. And even if it’s not called in a game, the league still reviews the tapes and can send out fines and such afterward. So, maybe that one hit that’s questionable isn’t called in game, but the league office won’t let it slide and fines him just for the point of not having so many clean hits result in injuries.
So, I think chances are if you had a guy that was able to hurt four or five people in a given game, they’d be able to make some kind of rule change and very tightly watch him such that he’d no longer be able to injure people consistently without getting rules infractions.
And Deacon Jones’ head slap.
Rules will be changed before anyone gets suspended for following the rules.