At Tampa summit, former NFL star warns about concussion risks from football

TAMPA — At his peak, Jordan Reed was a fearsome sight for defensive backs trying to halt the speedy 6-foot 2-inch, 242-pound tight end.

He scored 28 touchdowns during an eight-year career with NFL teams in Washington and San Francisco and was selected for the 2016 Pro Bowl. He also suffered 12 concussions, missing multiple games as a result.

He had planned to play for 10 seasons but toward the end of his career he began to suffer from tinnitus, anxiety, depression and mental fatigue. MRI tests showed signs of damage to his brain that doctors said were from his concussions. On their advice, he retired in April 2021.

Reed was one of three former NFL players who spoke Thursday at a downtown Tampa conference highlighting the long-term risks of repeated blows to the head of children who play contact sports such as football, wrestling, soccer and ice hockey. The conference, which attracted participants from as far as Australia, included researchers whose studies have linked concussions and head injuries to neurodegenerative conditions, most notably chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

Reed said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times that he supports initiatives that prevent or limit children playing tackle football. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children under 14 play flag or noncontact football. He declined to answer a question about whether the NFL should do more to protect players.

A father to three daughters, Reed said had he had boys, he would not have let them play football.

“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “I don’t think the risk and the reward add up.”

The two-day conference, held at the USF Health Center For Advanced Medical Learning And Simulation on Franklin Street, was organized by the Mac Parkman Foundation For Adolescent Concussive Trauma. The nonprofit was founded by Anna Maria Island father Bruce Parkman, who believes his son’s suicide at the age of 17 was the result of depression caused by repeated head injuries from football and wrestling.

A common theme that emerged from speakers was the need to educate more health care providers about the risks of repeated head injuries from sports and the skepticism of governing bodies to acknowledge any link between their sport and brain injuries.

The keynote speaker of the first day was Ann McKee, a distinguished professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University and director of the university’s CTE Center.

McKee made national headlines after publishing a survey based on postmortem examinations of the brains of former football players that found CTE in 110 out of 111 former NFL players.

She said Thursday that the NFL has made some positive changes in recent years, such as changes to kickoffs to reduce head-on collisions. But she said Commissioner Roger Goodell is still skeptical about the link between concussions and CTE. The league compensates retired players diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, and Alzheimer’s disease, but not CTE.

“What they really need to address is the number of hits to the head in just routine play,” she said. “The care of retired players is still really lacking.”

On its website, the NFL states that it has made more than 50 rule changes since 2002 to make football safer for players. That includes rules against players using their helmet to “butt, ram, spear” or make forcible contact with opponents’ head or neck area.

Nick Gates, whose father, Bill Gates, played professional soccer for 13 years in England, spoke about the work done by Head Safe Football, a U.K. group that has campaigned for heading to be banned in children’s soccer and to remove heading from training sessions for older players.

Several studies have shown that professional soccer players have a far higher risk of neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia.

As a central defender, Bill Gates repeatedly headed soccer balls kicked over long distances. Toward the end of his life, he lost the ability to walk and talk and was diagnosed with dementia in 2014. He died last year.

“It should be separate rules for the brain,” his son said. “We treat the hamstring better than we treat the brain.”

The summit also included discussion about the impact of blasts and other military activities on veterans. The Veterans Affairs’ Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center reported about 414,000 service members have documented traumatic brain injury cases since 2000.