Friendly fire during football practices often results in nothing more than a few bruises and shared laughs in the locker room. But when two hard-hitting defenders are flying downhill with no room to slow down, there is a chance that the joke ends before anyone gets to laugh. And that’s what happened to the former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback, Joe Haden. 

During a recent episode of Deebo & Joe, James Harrison asked his co-host if he’d ever faced friendly fire. Haden wasted no time in pointing out his collegiate practice session with Major Wright during his time at the Florida Gators. 

“Yes, I’ve had friendly fire in practice,” Haden recollected. “Knocked me unconscious. Major Wright, man. Training camp, Florida Gators. All live. Slant. He coming downhill, close his eyes, fired off on me. Bam! I wake up on the sideline, ice pack on my head. I say, ‘Yup, got to be more careful.’” 

The hit was so violent that Haden briefly lost consciousness. When he came around on the sideline, he had no memory of the moment.

“I had no dreams. It was nothing,” the cornerback said. “It was just a quiet state… What they call that when you sleep your eyes start flickering? I was in that. That man gave me narcolepsy, man. Major Wright, love you to death. But yeah, me was coming in that thing, eyes closed.” 

There was a reason Haden remembered Wright as the man capable of delivering such a hit. The 5-foot-11 safety had built a reputation for his physical style at Florida, and that carried into the NFL. The Chicago Bears selected him with their first pick in 2010 before he joined Tampa Bay in 2014. Across seven NFL seasons, Wright played 77 games and recorded nine interceptions. But his hard-hitting mentality was already clear from way back.

In 2009, he explained his mindset after leveling Oklahoma’s wide receiver Manuel Johnson in the first quarter of the BCS National Championship Game.

He later explained that “I could’ve easily went for the ball… but I didn’t want the ball. I wanted him.” And that mindset took the Gators to a 24-14 win. 

“When you’ve got Major Wright back there, and you see how hard he hits, you play with a lot of confidence because you know he’ll cover for you,” Haden said back in 2009. 

However, Haden’s case wasn’t the sole case of such collisions. Back in 2019, Philadelphia Eagles teammates Andrew Sendejo and Avonte Maddox collided helmet-to-helmet at high speed during a game against the Green Bay Packers. Maddox was knocked unconscious and had to be stabilized before being taken from the field on a stretcher.

A more recent case happened in 2025, when Giants cornerback Cor’Dale Flott suffered a concussion after accidentally taking a helmet shot from his own teammate Bobby Okereke while Okereke was making a tackle.

Now, Haden was using the term “narcolepsy” to describe the strange dreamless state he felt after being knocked out. However, narcolepsy is a far more serious condition.

Narcolepsy and an NFL player who has gone through it

Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological sleep disorder that affects the brain’s ability to regulate sleep-wake cycles. People who are affected by this can experience excessive daytime sleepiness and involuntary sleep episodes. There are also reports of people experiencing sleep paralysis and vivid hallucinations around the transition between sleep and wakefulness. And there have been NFL players who have dealt with narcolepsy.

Former offensive guard Josh Andrews was diagnosed with the disorder during his NFL career in 2017. Before he got tested, he had struggled with falling asleep in places he shouldn’t have. 

Then a specialized sleep study eventually revealed that he entered REM sleep almost immediately. But after treatment, he was able to continue his NFL career until he retired.