This is the story that should make everyone in football - players, coaches, owners, fans - stop and think about what we're asking these athletes to do.

Josh Johnson, the journeyman quarterback who filled in for the San Francisco 49ers during the 2023 NFC Championship Game, has revealed he suffered a double concussion and brain bleed during that game against the Philadelphia Eagles. NBC Sports Bay Area has the details, and folks, they're disturbing.

Let me paint the picture. The 49ers were already down to their third-string quarterback. Brock Purdy got hurt. Johnson came in, played through a massive hit, and stayed in the game. We all watched it happen. We cheered the toughness. We celebrated the warrior mentality.

Now we know he was playing with a brain bleed.

This is terrifying. This is the kind of thing that ends careers, that changes lives, that has long-term consequences we can't even measure yet. And he was out there calling plays, taking snaps, trying to win a football game.

Here are the questions we need to be asking: Did the medical staff know? If they did, why was he playing? If they didn't, how did they miss it? What does this say about our concussion protocols?

Johnson is 37 years old now. He's had an incredible career as a backup quarterback, playing for multiple teams, always ready when his number was called. But at what cost? How many other hits like that has he taken? What's the long-term impact on his health?

You know what drives me crazy about this? We act like football is just a game, but it's not. These guys are putting their bodies - their brains - on the line every single week. And we cheer for it. We celebrate the toughness. We call them warriors.

But when Josh Johnson is 50 years old and dealing with the consequences of that brain bleed, where will we be? Will we remember his sacrifice? Or will we have moved on to the next warrior, the next tough guy who plays through injury?

The NFL has made progress on concussion protocols. They've changed rules. They've added independent neurologists. But this still happened. In the NFC Championship Game. On the biggest stage. With everyone watching.

I'm not saying football needs to end. I love this game. I've covered it for 20 years. But we need to be honest about what it costs. Johnson could have died on that field. A brain bleed is no joke. People die from that.

Here's the other angle: the 49ers were desperate. They needed a quarterback. They were one game away from the Super Bowl. In that moment, with those stakes, how hard did they push? How much did they encourage him to stay in? How much did Johnson himself want to be the hero?

These are impossible situations. No one wants to be the guy who took himself out of the NFC Championship Game. No one wants to let their teammates down. But sometimes the bravest thing you can do is say, "I can't go."

That's what sports is all about, folks. Or at least, that's what it should be about. Not just the glory and the wins, but taking care of the men who make it possible. Josh Johnson deserves better. They all do.