More than a few current and former NFL players have recently expressed concern that they might have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease that studies have linked to the sorts of concussive and sub-concussive impacts common in football. On Monday, Boomer Esiason went a step further, claiming that he “likely” has the condition, as do “all football players.”
Esiason, a 56-year-old former NFL MVP who ended a 14-year career in 1997 and became a CBS football analyst, was discussing the issue on “Boomer and Carton,” his New York sports-radio show. Noting the deadline Monday for former NFL players to register for the league’s $1 billion settlement in a class-action lawsuit over its handling of brain injuries, Esiason was making the point that potential cases of CTE in living players — he thought such diagnoses might be possible in a few years’ time — were “carved out” of the settlement.