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IN 2015, COSTAS was invited to a November screening of "Concussion" in Hollywood. He was moved by the film and even thought Will Smith might earn an Oscar nod for his performance as Dr. Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist who had ignited the NFL's concussion crisis a decade earlier by first positing that former players had died with a brain disease caused by football.

NBC was scheduled to air Indianapolis at Pittsburgh on Dec. 6. The movie was set largely in Pittsburgh, and former Steelers great Mike Webster was a major character in the story.

"It was a natural lead-in," Costas told Outside the Lines. "I thought that the movie would make an impact, and I thought this was a way not only for NBC to acknowledge it, but to get out in front of it."

Costas typically wrote his essays on the fly on game day, sometimes even as the first quarter of the Sunday night matchup was under way. This time, though, he wrote it in advance to give his bosses an early look, recognizing it could create problems.

The essay, which has never been made public but was provided to Outside the Lines, began with a description of Omalu as "the neuropathologist who clearly demonstrated what just about everybody now understands -- but which for years the league denied: There is a direct and often tragic link between football and brain damage."

Costas says he sought to mitigate the potential embarrassment for the NFL by highlighting its efforts to improve player safety. "I purposely toned it down," he says.

He wrote, "To its credit, the NFL now has put millions into medical research and the possibility of improving equipment. They have instituted rules changes aimed at making the game safer, awareness programs aimed at youth football, and stricter head trauma protocols, which, even if they don't always work, at least appear to be a step in the right direction."

But Costas didn't hold back: "Even as the ratings rise, so, too, does a certain ambivalence. Because as much as we may try to push it into the background, there's a kind of Russian roulette going on on the field tonight and on our television screens throughout the fall and winter, since we know that for all the game's appeal, many of its participants will one day pay dearly for their part in our national obsession."

Costas says he submitted the essay to Ebersol's successor, NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus, and executive producer Sam Flood and awaited their response.

"I remember the reaction almost verbatim. They said, 'This is a very well-written piece, wouldn't change a comma. We can't air it."

Costas says he asked why.

"We're in negotiations with the NFL for Thursday Night Football," he says he was told.

"It was at that point that I realized that this was an untenable situation for me," he says. "I knew my days there were numbered."

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By this point, Costas' line at Maryland -- This game destroys people's brains -- had gone viral, raising hackles in the NBC offices. The New York Daily News asked NBC for comment, and a spokesman responded, "Bob's opinions are his own, and they do not represent those of the NBC Sports Group" -- prompting a story from Raissman under the headline, "NBC throws Bob Costas under the bus and in the process sends warning to rest of its talent."

Sensing a budding problem with his employer, Costas says he decided to appear on CNN on Saturday morning to make it clear he wasn't being critical of NBC. So, for the third time in a week, Costas was talking publicly about football and brain damage. He didn't soften any of his comments -- in fact, he reiterated them -- but he did attempt to defend the network.

"I've been saying these things for the better part of a decade, and often on NBC, in front of the biggest audience not just in all of sports, but in all of television -- 'Sunday Night Football,'" Costas told host Michael Smerconish. "And I think NBC Sports deserves credit for this."

Within an hour, Costas says he received a text from Flood, who oversees sports production for NBC.

"I think the words were, 'You've crossed the line,'" says Costas, who says he no longer has the text.

"My thought was, 'What line have I crossed?'"

Later, Costas says he pointed out that he had been saying these things about football for years -- often on NBC. That didn't matter; it seemed this was one time too many.

Costas was told he was off the Super Bowl LII broadcast.

"I recall the phrase, 'It's a six-hour, daylong celebration of football, and you're not the right person to celebrate football,'" Costas says. "To which my response was not, 'Oh please, please, change your mind.' My response was, 'Yeah, I guess you're right.'"

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Maybe the story shouldn't be why Bob Costas got dropped from the Super Bowl, but rather why Bob Costas won't (or maybe shouldn't) do football any more.

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All of which is to say, there's a larger societal issue at play here. Football may be the worst offender, but really this is more an indictment of the human condition in some ways.