ATL Standard

Former NFL and Georgia Tech football star Demaryius Thomas had Stage 2 CTE when he died suddenly in December 2021, the Boston University CTE Center confirmed last week.

According to a statement from the Center, while in his twenties, Thomas suffered from daily headaches, chronic pain and vision issues. In his thirties, the wide receiver began reporting anxiety, depression, apathy and memory lapses, gradually worsening.

"He had two different conditions in parallel," Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University neuropathologist told the New York Times.

An NFL veteran of 10 seasons, most of which were spent with the Denver Broncos where he was part of the franchise’s Super Bowl 50 winning team, Thomas was 33 years old when he was found dead in his Roswell home about six months after officially announcing his NFL retirement. Back then, authorities immediately made the decision to simply classify his cause of death as a medical issue, according to a report by FOX 5 Atlanta.

Following his passing, Thomas' family donated his brain to the Boston University CTE Center, where researchers said they noticed signs of the disease in his brain, the report states. More than a year prior to his death, family members indicated he began to suffer seizures alongside his worsening medical issues.

Stage 2 C.T.E. is associated with progressive behavioral, cognitive and mood abnormalities and in its worse stages—dementia, FOX 5 reports. To date, researchers have studied more than 1,200 brains of former football players, with a 2017 study published in the Journal of American Medical Association finding CTE in 99% of brains obtained from NFL players, 91% of college football players and 21% of high school football players.