Former Giants Player Tyler Sash Found to Have CTE When He Died at Age 27
The player died at a very young age, and his football career seems to be part of the cause. (Photo: Getty Images)
When former New York Giants player Tyler Sash died of an accidental overdose at age 27, fans and experts wondered whether his football career — 2 years in the NFL, 16 years total of playing competitively — may have had anything to do with his death. Now, researchers at Boston University have confirmed to the New York Times that Sash had stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, when he died.
CTE is a brain disease that is linked with repeated trauma to the brain, including concussions. There has been evidence of CTE in boxers since the 1920s, according to the Boston University CTE Center, but the disease has been increasingly found in professional football players.
Sash was cut by the Giants after suffering his 5th documented concussion, though experts guess that he suffered significantly more head trauma over the course of his career. After leaving the Giants, he was unable to hold down a job and could get confused or combative, unable to focus. His family believed that it was the result of powerful pain meds to treat a shoulder injury, but experts discovered advanced CTE when they examined his donated brain.
“My son knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t express it,” Barnetta Sash told the Times. “He was such a good person, and it’s sad that he struggled so with this — not knowing where to go with it. Now it makes sense. The part of the brain that controls impulses, decision-making and reasoning was damaged badly.”
Related: NFL Legend Frank Gifford Had CTE in Brain
Sash isn’t alone in his struggle — former NFL great Junior Seau’s brain was found to have stage 2 CTE after he committed suicide at 43 in 2012. He too experienced confusion and mental health issues. And NFL legend Frank Gifford was found to have CTE when he passed away in August.
Still, some experts caution that CTE might not always be the correct — and full — diagnosis. This may be the case with Tyler Sash, Steven Flanagan, MD, co-director of the Concussion Center and chair of Rehabilitation Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center’s Rusk Rehabilitation Center, tells Yahoo Health. “Most of the cases of CTE have traditionally involved folks who are many years out of the NFL. He’s quite young, and he was on some other medications,” he explains. “There are many reasons why folks may have behavior changes, and while we may be quick to assume it’s CTE, we have to consider that there might be other possibilities.”
Flanagan cautions that abnormal plaque in the brain is not always CTE, and that while CTE has been found in several donated brains of former NFL players, there are other donated brains with plaque but no CTE. The goal is to have a better understanding of what causes injury to the brain and how to prevent it, Flanagan says, and progress can be stymied by jumping to conclusions.
Football-related head trauma has been at the forefront of discussion recently, thanks in part to Concussion, the Will Smith-led movie that highlighted how devastating blows to the head can be for football players. The movie focused on the NFL (and faced major pushback from the league), but also caused parents to question whether children should play the sport. Sash played in the NFL for only two years — he sustained concussions in high school and college that look to have advanced his brain damage to an advanced stage for his age.
With each new diagnosis, the future of football gets harder to predict. Will new, superprotective gear be the answer? Or will peewee football soon be a thing of the past? Each new case is a step toward understanding the disease and how to prevent it.
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Additional reporting by Amanda Chan
