Former Kansas City Chiefs football player Jovan Belcher, who fatally shot his girlfriend in 2012 before killing himself, was suffering from a degenerative brain condition found in other deceased NFL players, according to an attorney for the family.
Attorney Dirk Vandever, who is representing Belcher's young daughter, said a postmortem analysis of Belcher's brain revealed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is associated with concussion related injuries and has been found in several other former NFL players such as Junior Seau, who took his own life in 2012.
The NFL is currently engaged in discussions with former players who are seeking a settlement to help cover the costs of conditions caused by repeated head injuries suffered during their playing careers.
"Probably the two most significant problems that the NFL is facing is a) what does the nature of the game itself mean in terms of the health of these young men in terms of head trauma," Kansas City-based Vandever said. "And second, what do we do about domestic violence? Here you have in Jovan Belcher somebody who had been subjected to ongoing head trauma and then erupted."
Vandever says that CTE is tied to anger and depression issues.
This report comes at a time when the NFL is under public scrutiny for a string of domestic violence incidents involving marquee players recently.
"We decided to bring it out at this point because all of the publicity about the five different NFL players that have been implicated in the domestic violence," Vandever said.
Belcher's daughter and mother would be eligible for up to $4 million under a proposed concussion settlement between the NFL and former players if it can be shown that Belcher had CTE. ESPN's Outside the Lines reported Monday that neuropathologist Piotr Kozlowski's analysis of Belcher's brain confirmed the presence of CTE.
