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Devon Still retweeted
What a full-circle moment! We're so happy to welcome Leah to the Chick-fil-A family! 🥰
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Devon Still retweeted
This is awesome. My daughter is the same age and I remember her story on Monday Night Football!
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Guess I should've posted her first day pic for y'all. My bad.
What's funny is during chemo, she rarely ate unless it was @ChickfilA.
12 years later, she still orders the exact same meal, and the first job she wanted was with them. Pretty sure it's for the discount. 😂
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CTE matters, and the research needs to continue. But players deserve the full picture. When we only talk about what they can't control, we take away their sense of agency. When we talk about what they can, we give it back.
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Fifth, better prepare players and their partners for retirement. That's when many struggle most. They lose an identity built around the sport and lose touch with teammates. That isolation makes mental health struggles worse.
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Fourth, prioritize psychological safety and frame it as a competitive advantage. Players only seek help when it won't cost them their role or contract. If owners and coaches see it as a wellness add-on, they won't prioritize it. If they see it as a way to win, they will.
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And their own mental health is overlooked. They deal with moves, injuries, the ups and downs of performance, and being cut off from their own support systems. It's hard to support someone else when you're struggling yourself.
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Third, involve romantic partners. Relationships are one of the strongest buffers against stress, yet the wives and girlfriends of NFL players are rarely educated on what players face or the resources available.
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Second, broaden mental health resources beyond counseling and crisis lines. Research on person-activity fit shows that when a tool fits who someone is, they're far more likely to use it. Support has to feel natural to work.
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First, teach mental health and coping skills early, the same way the NFL used Heads Up Tackling to reduce concussions in high school players. The earlier the intervention, the better the chance of lowering vulnerabilities before players reach college or the league.
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But here's the good news. Early adversity raises the risk. It doesn't decide a player's mental health. With the right support and coping skills, those paths can change. That's where players have agency.
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Research also shows players with more adverse childhood experiences tend to play more aggressively and take more risks. That can mean more concussions, and more concussions mean higher CTE risk.
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Then they face the pressure of college and professional sports. Those demands can intensify vulnerabilities that were already there long before they turned pro.
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Here's why.
Chronic stress in childhood changes how the brain develops and how the body handles stress. The stress system stays on high alert, and that wiring follows players into adulthood.
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That same adversity leaves players more vulnerable to depression, anxiety and other mental health struggles later in life.
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Here's what gets lost. A lot of players grow up dealing with serious adversity: violence, loss, instability at home. Those experiences build the toughness and drive that make them great. But they come with a cost.
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They've let the media and the public run with an unproven link between CTE, suicide and mental health. Now every time a player struggles, people blame CTE. Yet Chris himself said the relationship hasn't been defined and more research is needed.
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