To the usual lineup of beer and car commercials on Super Bowl Sunday, add this: one about player safety.

For the first time, the N.F.L., currently the target of more than a dozen lawsuits accusing it of deliberately concealing information about the effects on players of repeated hits to the head, will use one minute of its own commercial time during its signature event to address player safety, its most critical and sobering problem.

“It is your biggest stage, you’ve got a massive audience, a massive casual audience, and this topic is probably one of most important topics for casual fans, particularly mothers,” Mark Waller, the N.F.L.’s chief marketing officer, said about the decision to inject a serious subject into the league’s over-the-top party. “And so the possibility that we could actually address the issue in a constructive, engaging way with that audience makes it definitely worth the challenge. It’s a risk, without a doubt.”

The N.F.L. spent several million dollars on the commercial and the creation of an accompanying Web site — nfl.com/evolution — that will go online Sunday and give detailed information about the history of the game and various rules changes. By using 60 of the 150 seconds of advertising time it is allotted during NBC’s telecast of the Super Bowl, the N.F.L. is taking away time it could use to promote other aspects of its business, including more traditional subjects like the NFL Network. (The average cost for 30 seconds of ad time during the Super Bowl is $3.5 million.)