NFL Players Place a $75 Million Bet Against CTE

Arizona Cardinals receiver Michael Wilson signed a three-year, $75 million extension on Sept. 3, after saying CTE was a risk he would take for his family. The 26-year-old wideout called that choice a bet on himself.

He is not alone. More than 30 current and former NFL players described how they live with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease confirmed only after death, and with new math that puts a floor under the odds.

Michael Wilson Priced the Wager at $75 Million

Wilson is in his fourth season. In 2025 he caught 78 passes for 1,006 yards and 7 touchdowns, then sat across from interviewers and walked through the trade in plain language: legacy, money, and a disease he hopes he never gets.

How cool would it be to leave a legacy that generations of my family, the Wilson legacy will talk about? And if CTE is a consequence of that, then so be it. But I also could sleep good at night knowing that I was the one person in the Wilson family that ended up changing our financial, socioeconomic class, like you can point it back to me and say, ‘Michael’s the one that did it.’ So for my kids’ kids’ kids’ kids, they can always look at me and if CTE is a consequence of that, then I’m willing to bet on myself that hopefully I won’t get it, but if I do, then I made a decision and I chose that.

Michael Wilson, Arizona Cardinals receiver

The deal that followed carries $75 million over three years, with $47 million guaranteed, $35 million fully guaranteed at signing, and an $18 million signing bonus. He is under contract through 2029.

Minnesota Vikings guard Will Fries, 28 and in his sixth season, frames the same ledger from the other side of the line. He was 17 when the movie Concussion came out in 2015 and 18 when NFL executive Jeff Miller sat in front of a congressional committee in 2016 and said the link to CTE was real.

“Your football life is short,” Fries said, “and then you’ve got the rest of your life to live.” He also said he would not trade the sport. “A lot of guys want to have families and that’s a goal of mine. Would I trade football for anything? Absolutely not. I love putting in the work and I know the risks of it, and I’m doing everything I can.”

At Least One in Four Dead Players Had CTE

Researchers say CTE is driven by repeated subconcussive hits, the kind that land on almost every play in tackle football. There is no specific treatment, in part because the diagnosis still requires a brain after death.

215 Confirmed Cases Among 878 Deaths

A paper published Aug. 25, 2026, in The BMJ, from Mass General Brigham, Boston University, and the Concussion & CTE Foundation, counted every former NFL player from the hard-shell helmet era who died from 2016 to 2021. There were 878 deaths. Families donated 235 brains. CTE showed up in 215 of those brains, 91.4 percent of the donor pool.

The conservative floor treats those 215 confirmed cases as the only ones among all 878 deaths, which is at least one in four former players, or 24.5 percent. If every player who did not donate also had the disease, the share would reach 97.7 percent. Both extremes are unlikely. Lead author Daniel Daneshvar, chair of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Mass General Brigham, put the warning in the gap between them.

Community brain bank studies have shown that CTE affects less than 1% of the general population. To find that somewhere between 24.5% and 97.7% of NFL players from that time period had this progressive brain disease is a wake-up call for the NFL and scientific communities. These data, alongside my experience treating NFL players with dementia in clinic, indicate that we need to dedicate resources towards developing a cure.

Daniel Daneshvar, MD, PhD, Mass General Brigham, on the BMJ study

Among donors with CTE, 61.3 percent met clinical criteria for dementia. Among donors who had dementia, 95.5 percent had CTE pathology. Jesse Mez, co-director of clinical research at the BU CTE Center, said symptoms can improve with proper care and that players should not be left to diagnose themselves.

The donor rate is not the league rate. Online arguments still collapse 91.4 percent of donated brains into a claim that almost every player is already marked. The paper’s own floor is 24.5 percent. The honest range sits somewhere in the middle, and even that middle dwarfs the community rate of less than 1 percent.

THREE STUDIES THAT PRICE THE WAGER

The table is the bet in numbers: a posthumous floor of 24.5 percent, a suicide gap that opened after CTE entered public talk, and a living cohort in which belief itself tracks despair.

Suicide Rates Diverged After 2010

The Harvard Football Players Health Study compared deaths from 1979 to 2019 among NFL, NBA, and MLB players. Across the full span, suicide rates looked similar. Split the years at 2011, and the lines separate. From 2011 to 2019, former NFL players had a 2.6-fold higher suicide rate than the basketball and baseball groups.

The authors do not claim that gap is CTE in a simple line. Public talk about the disease rose after 2010. High-profile suicides may have had a copycat effect. Men who notice memory or mood trouble may assume they have an incurable brain disease. The same group has also published on that belief.

In the 2024 JAMA Neurology survey of 1,980 former professional players, 34.4 percent said they thought they had CTE. Suicidality was reported by 25.4 percent of that group and 5.0 percent of the rest, about five times higher before other factors are weighed. After depression and related variables, former players who believed they had CTE were still twice as likely to report those thoughts (odds ratio 2.06). Rachel Grashow of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health noted that sleep apnea, low testosterone, high blood pressure, and chronic pain can mimic the thinking problems men then pin on CTE. Those conditions can be treated now. CTE still cannot be confirmed in a living person.

Former players in crisis can call the NFL Life Line at 800-506-0078, a confidential service the Harvard group lists for men and families who need it today rather than after an autopsy.

Sleep, Fish, and a Soft Shell Over the Helmet

On a hot practice field, Fries catalogs his steps in full pads. He eats a lot of fish for omega-3s. He tries never to sleep fewer than eight hours. Other players have their own versions of the same instinct: buy whatever protection the locker room will tolerate, then go hit people anyway.

HOW ACTIVE PLAYERS TRY TO HEDGE

• Diet and sleep: Fries leans on fish, omega-3s, and a hard eight-hour floor, and he treats each practice step as something to track.
• Helmet swap: Vikings safety Joshua Metellus, 28, upgraded last season from a model the NFL did not recommend to one it ranked safer, his first change of that kind in his career.
• Tackle shape: Steelers safety DeShon Elliott, 29, said he now tries to wrap and roll instead of “hit anything, whatever body part,” and to keep his head out of the collision.
• Add-on pad: Saints receiver Chris Olave, 26, started a Guardian Cap this season after four confirmed concussions and a stretch, at 24, when he thought about retiring.
• The money clause: Wilson signed through 2029 after saying the family climb outweighed a disease that might arrive later, especially at wide receiver.

Olave put the pad in the context of his children. “You know all the head injuries I’ve had in my career, so [a Guardian Cap] was just a decision I made,” he said on Sept. 14, after the opener. “I’ve got kids now. It’s not all about football. I want to live a regular life after I’m done with football.”

Elliott still talks like a hitter. After he signed in Pittsburgh in 2024 he said that if you are scared of being physical, get off the field. He also said the science has started to scare him. “When I do have kids, eventually, I want to be able to just run around with them and spend time with my grandkids as well.”

NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills, more than nine years in the job, boils the league’s CTE stance into three jobs: keep funding research that ties pathology to symptoms in life, stop players from diagnosing themselves and treat the symptoms medicine already knows, and cut head contact wherever the rules and the technique coaches can reach.

The NFL Players Association said this summer that everyone involved shares a duty to push research, open care, build better treatments, and back people living with the long-term cost of the game. Comfort in that language is uneven. Some men treat new rules and new shells as proof the job got safer. Boston University CTE researcher Michael Alosco, a co-author on the BMJ prevalence paper, is not in that camp. “Some of these [mitigations], I don’t think they fully address the problem,” he said. “I think it’s a violent game.”

Why Guardian Caps Do Not Cover This Bet

Guardian Caps became a required extra shell for some positions in practice in 2022 and were cleared for games in 2024. League figures have cited a 54 to 62 percent drop in preseason concussions among the positions that had to wear them. That is a concussion count in camp, not a CTE finding in a brain bank.

Chris Nowinski, founding CEO of the Concussion & CTE Foundation, spent September pushing back on the idea that today’s helmets and caps let anyone dismiss the 24.5 percent floor. He said there is no evidence that helmets reduce CTE risk. Lab tests of the Guardian Cap XT, in his account, show a 2 percent cut in rotational force at best, and they can make the hit worse.

Are better helmets making football safer, or creating a false sense of security? 🤔

After we released our latest findings on the prevalence of CTE in former NFL players, we heard a lot of people dismissing them because players didn’t have the improved helmets and Guardian Caps… pic.twitter.com/b2SYi4g4vE

— Chris Nowinski, Ph.D. (@ChrisNowinski1) September 5, 2026

Alosco has said the same thing in plainer clinic language: the caps may signal that a player cares about his brain, but they do not stop the brain from shaking inside the skull on play after play. CTE tracks that repetition. A 2019 Boston University analysis found the risk of developing CTE rises 30 percent with each year of tackle football and doubles every 2.6 years. Concussion counts were not the driver. Years of hits were.

That is why a pad over a helmet can fail as insurance even when it wins a lab test. A retired trainer answering Nowinski noted that a thicker, textured shell can grab instead of sliding, which may raise the twist on the head. A coach asked whether rugby-style tackling will show up in the data. Another reply cut to the workload: stop adding foam and start cutting unnecessary head contact. The useful hedge is fewer years and fewer blows, not a second hat.

The unused cap has a second job. Skip it, and a club can point to the shell sitting in a locker. Wear it, and the pathology paper still does not move. Culture still punishes the look of caution on the offensive line, which is one reason so few skill players treat the cap as standard kit even after Olave put one on in Week 1.

Larry Johnson Still Asks His Daughter to Drive

Retired players hear the active locker room’s jokes and flinch. Elliott has his own version: go blank on something from last week, then say, “Oh my god, it’s that CTE.” New York Giants running back Cam Skattebo, asked this summer whether CTE was real, said, “No, it’s an excuse.” He later called it a tasteless joke and apologized.

Matt Hasselbeck, who started 17 NFL seasons at quarterback and announced his retirement on March 9, 2016, five days before Miller’s “certainly yes” on Capitol Hill, said he will donate his brain. He had little patience for the Skattebo bit.

CTE is a very real thing. And we have guys who are very conscious of it. We also have guys who are whatever the opposite of that is. We have guys that are rookie running backs slamming their heads into everything with their helmet. And then they’re making light of it and they’re making jokes of it. And they’re, like, ‘I don’t care. You only live once.’ And then they have to come back and apologize.

Matt Hasselbeck, former NFL quarterback

The reminders this year have not been theoretical. In July, researchers determined that former Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland had CTE after dying by suicide eight months earlier. The family of former San Francisco 49ers star Aldon Smith, who died suddenly at 36 in June, donated his brain to the Boston University CTE Center.

Some men cashed out of the bet early. Linebacker Chris Borland, a 2014 standout, retired after one season at 24, citing head trauma. Former Buccaneers lineman Ali Marpet walked away in 2022 at 28 and called it one of the hardest decisions of his life, because his own value system puts health first and football fights that.

Larry Johnson, 46, an All-Pro running back who retired in 2011, did not walk away early. He now asks his daughter to drive because he has gone blank at the wheel. He described sharp emotional swings. He also said he would not change the career, including seasons of 400 carries.

FROM WEBSTER TO THE BMJ PAPER

1. 2002: Former Steelers center Mike Webster dies at 50, the case later dramatized in Concussion.
2. 2014: Chris Borland retires after one NFL season at 24 over head-trauma risk.
3. 2015: Concussion reaches theaters; Fries is 17.
4. March 9, 2016: Hasselbeck announces his retirement.
5. March 14, 2016: Jeff Miller tells Congress the football-CTE link is “certainly yes.”
6. 2022: Ali Marpet retires at 28; Guardian Caps become required in some NFL practices.
7. Sept. 23, 2024: JAMA Neurology reports 34.4 percent of surveyed former players believe they have CTE.
8. July 2026: Researchers find CTE in Marshawn Kneeland’s brain after his death by suicide.
9. Aug. 25, 2026: The BMJ paper sets the 24.5 percent floor for deaths from 2016 to 2021.

Johnson’s account is the downside of Wilson’s sentence, lived in traffic instead of on a highlight. The paycheck cleared. The driving did not.

Fathers Who Would Wait Until 14

Elias Sports Bureau counts 68 players on active and reserve NFL rosters whose fathers played in the league. They inherited the love of the game and the habit of taking the hit. Asked about their own sons, most of the men who answered would still allow football. They would change the clock.

WHEN THESE FATHERS WOULD ALLOW TACKLE

• Age 14 or 15: Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, 29, wants flag first. He quit an early try at 12, started for real at 14, and would hold his kids to “about 14, 15 years old.”
• Not the 6-year-olds: An NFC North defensive end said he would let his kids play later, not in the videos of small children spearing with the crown of the helmet.
• After the body develops: An NFC defensive lineman started in third grade and would not repeat that with a son.
• Full yes: Jaguars center Robert Hainsey, 28, said the game shaped him for 20 years and he hopes his kids want it.
• The one no: An NFC North defensive back said he would rather see a son in basketball, because he now feels the pounding from the inside.

That delay is the one hedge that matches the pathology. The Concussion & CTE Foundation tells parents to delay tackle football until age 14, because risk tracks years of play, not the concussion total on a clipboard. A future NFL player who starts tackle at 5 may face 10 times the odds of CTE of one who starts at 14. CDC figures cited by the foundation put median impacts in a season at 378 for tackle and 8 for flag. A child’s head is large for the body, and youth sensors have recorded average hits around 20.6 g, in the same neighborhood as college football.

Alosco has said the data should shape youth policy, not just NFL press releases, because the only established driver for the presence of CTE so far is years of football. Starting younger has also been tied to earlier thinking and mood symptoms, by about 2.4 and 2.5 years for each year of earlier exposure in a BU sample, and by about 13 years for those who started before 12.

Washington Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota, 32 and in his 12th season, said the talks happen at home. The studies, in his words, show the risk is “pretty relevant across all players.” The family is comfortable, so he keeps chasing it, knowing that more years open more of those risks.

Stadiums Stay Full Because the Bet Still Pays

Vikings running back Aaron Jones Sr., 31 and in his 10th season, still talks about privilege. A million people would trade places, he said, and he is not going back. Indianapolis tight end Mo Alie-Cox, 33, split the locker room by bank account: men who have already been paid can walk, and men still clawing will play until the wheels fall off. Colts receiver Josh Downs, 25, tries not to picture his head or his hip in 10 or 15 years. His father, who played in the league, used to tell him football was rough and he would get hurt.

“When you’re a kid, you don’t listen,” Downs said. “Now, I realize when I’m older, you know what? He wasn’t wrong. But it’s a risk that a lot of guys are willing to take.”

Stadiums are full. Television ratings keep setting marks. League revenue sits at historic levels. The BMJ floor, the suicide split after 2010, and the 34.4 percent who already believe they have CTE have not emptied the pipeline. They have changed the side bets: eight hours of sleep, a fish-heavy plate, a better helmet, a Guardian Cap on a receiver who has been concussed four times, and a growing rule that sons should wait until 14.

Wilson’s $75 million is the cleanest recent ticket. The house still settles after death.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of published research and on-record comments from players, physicians, and researchers. It is informational only and is not medical, mental-health, or legal advice, and it is not a diagnosis of CTE or of any other condition in any living person. Readers who are worried about memory, mood, sleep, pain, or thoughts of self-harm should talk with a qualified physician or licensed mental-health clinician, and former players can also use the NFL Life Line, before making decisions about care or about continuing to play. Figures, contract terms, and clinical statuses reflect the studies and statements cited here and can change as new brains are examined and as living players’ health changes.