Former NFL wide receiver Vincent Jackson, who was found dead in a Florida hotel room after he was reported missing earlier this year, has been posthumously diagnosed with chronic brain disease.
Jackson, a veteran of 12 NFL seasons with the Chargers and Buccaneers, was found to have Stage 2 CTE during examinations of his brain, according to Dr. Ann McKee, one of the leading researchers at Boston University's CTE Center.
"Vincent Jackson was a brilliant, disciplined, gentle giant whose life began to change in his mid-30s. He became depressed, with progressive memory loss, problem solving difficulties, paranoia, and eventually extreme social isolation," McKee said in a statement.
Jackson was 38 and had been living in a hotel in Brandon, Florida, for upwards of a month at the time of his death in February. Friends and family said he had been struggling with alcoholism and depression for several years beginning with his retirement from professional football after the 2016 season.
The three-time Pro Bowler's CTE diagnosis comes just days after similar findings were announced in the case of former NFL journeyman defensive back Phillip Adams, who inexplicably gunned down six innocent people in South Carolina before turning the gun on himself last April.
Adams, too, was found to have suffered from Stage 2 CTE, according to McKee's researchers. Similarly, his friends and family said they noticed marked changes in Adams' behavior post-football, with his father even remarking that the game had "messed up" his son.
According to McKee, Adams had an "unusually severe" degree of Stage 2 CTE in the frontal lobes of his brain.
The disease, which is thought to be caused by repeated head trauma, has been assigned four levels of severity, with Stage 4 being the most severe and usually associated with full-on dementia. It can only be diagnosed through posthumous examination, however, making it next to impossible to identify in the living.
Jackson's stunning death came as a shock to the NFL community, where he was long known as both a standout player on the field, and an easy-going good guy off of it.
His widow, Lindsey, said in a statement that Jackson would have wanted his diagnosis to help others down the road, according to ESPN.
"Vincent dedicated so much of his life to helping others. Even in his passing, I know he would want to continue that same legacy," she said.
McKee meanwhile admonished a football culture that she says has been to slow to adopt the necessary measures to curb catastrophic brain injuries.
"That his brain showed stage 2 CTE should no longer surprise us; these results have become commonplace," McKee said. "What is surprising is that so many football players have died with CTE and so little is being done to make football, at all levels, safer by limiting the number of repetitive subconcussive hits. CTE will not disappear by ignoring it, we need to actively address the risk that football poses to brain health and to support the players who are struggling."
For his career, Jackson reeled in 540 catches for 9,080 yards and 57 touchdowns. The prototype deep-threat receiver averaged a whopping 16.8 yards per reception for his career, and led the league with 19.2 yards per catch in 2012.
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