Study: 75% of NFL Players Who Died Since 2008 Had CTE
The Facts
- A study published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open estimated that about 75% of former NFL players who died over the 15-year span from 2008 through 2023 had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the highest such estimate to date.
- The analysis covered 2,362 deceased former NFL players, including 396 whose brains were donated and 1,966 who were not donors. Among 387 donors with a neuropathological evaluation, 362, or 93.5%, were found to have CTE.
- Researchers calculated that players with clear cognitive symptoms were roughly five times likelier to have their brains donated, then used that selection ratio to adjust the donor figure to 74.5%, with a lower-bound analysis estimating 63.7%.
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The Spin
Narrative A
Knowing the true scope of brain disease in football is a reason for hope and better care. Many symptoms tied to CTE — memory loss, mood swings and sleep trouble — respond to treatment from doctors who specialize in neurodegenerative disease. Fear without treatment carries a death toll of its own, including suicide, which is why research, care and safer rules deliver more than panic ever will.
Narrative B
No rule tweak can fix a game built on hitting heads. While the NFL is a game played by consenting adults, countless kids playing in tax-funded school leagues are enduring the same injuries at the youth level, causing depression, dementia and Parkinson's — a price no one, let alone a child, should pay for a school tradition. Medicine and research should be prescribed at the adult and private level, but public schools shouldn't be funding this dangerous pastime.
