CTE continues to plague NFL players, its latest victim being former Broncos’ star receiver, Demaryius Thomas.
The 33-year-old receiver shockingly passed away in December, and no foul play was suspected at the time.
But it wasn’t something that just happened. According to the NY Times, family members said that he had changed.
His behavior had become erratic, he suffered from memory loss, paranoia and isolation.
Those are all indicators of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, otherwise known as C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease that is linked to concussions and hits to the head.
On Tuesday, doctors declared that Demaryius Thomas was posthumously diagnosed with Stage 2 C.T.E., something his family had suspected.
But those doctors also announced that, according to the Times, “his life and death were also complicated by seizures brought on by a 2019 car crash.”
Those seizures resulted in other car crashes and Thomas falling down steps.
While the coroner’s office in Fulton County, GA hasn’t ruled on the official cause of death yet, the doctors in Boston said his death most likely came after a seizure.
“He had two different conditions in parallel,” said Dr. Ann McKee, the neuropathologist who studied Thomas’s brain.
She also noted that seizures were not generally associated with C.T.E.
McKee directs the C.T.E. Center at Boston University. She has studied the brains of many former NFL players including Phillip Adams, who shot and killed six people before killing himself in April 2021.
Phillips was diagnosed with Stage 2 C.T.E., whose symptoms include aggression, impulsivity, explosivity, depression, paranoia, anxiety, poor executive function and memory loss.
While we don’t have the official cause of death as of yet, it’s clear that Demaryius Thomas, affectionately known as “Bay Bay” while starring at Georgia Tech, has joined the growing list of former NFL players who suffered from the debilitating brain disease, one which the NFL tried to cover up for so long.
RIP Demaryius.
