Former NFL player Aaron Hernandez had severe CTE

Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez, who was serving a life sentence for murdering a friend and who died in prison from suicide earlier this year, was found to have “a severe form” of CTE, a brain disease linked to repeated head trauma that has also been found in many other former NFL players.

Researchers who examined the brain determined it was “the most severe case they had ever seen in someone of Aaron’s age,” said a lawyer for Hernandez in announcing the result at a news conference on Thursday. Hernandez was 27.

Hernandez played three seasons in college and only three in the NFL, yet the damage to his brain was similar to “players with a median age of 67 years”. If you’re a young football player in college or the NFL right now, you have to be looking at this situation pretty hard right now.

See also: Don’t Let Kids Play Football, what the ball boy saw, I’m quitting football, NFL deliberately campaigned against science regarding head injuries, Junior Seau’s family sues NFL over concussions, how professional football might end (sooner than you think), and a message in an NFL player’s suicide.

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