Football
Among professional sports worldwide, football is considered one of the most dangerous. Horrible injuries, lifelong issues throughout the body, and mental baggage are all things that come from playing football, especially in the NFL. Players have been able to recover from these things, but others haven’t.
One highly publicized long-term effect of playing football has been CTE, which is a degenerative brain disease caused by hits to the head. Another disease that has been linked to football, and has become a major topic of conversation in recent days, is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS
Football Mike Florio Sheds Light on the Link Between Football and ALS
This week, major news broke that former Tennessee Titans star running back Chris Johnson was diagnosed with ALS back in 2025. If you do not know, ALS is a disease that attacks the nerves in the brain and spine, resulting in loss of all motor functions, including breathing.
Johnson has lost nearly all motor skills, but that is not stopping him from fighting this disease head-on and working to find a cure for each person dealing with this horrible disease.
This is not the first time we have seen a former NFL player deal with ALS. Players like Steve McMichael, Tim Shaw, and Steve Gleason all battled or are still battling ALS, with Gleason being a leading voice in the research of the disease.
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The news of Johnson’s diagnosis brings up the topic of the link between football and ALS, and NFL insider Mike Florio made sure to speak on this issue.
During a segment on “Pro Football Talk,” he first spoke on the concussion settlement from the NFL that compensated retired players who suffered from a list of conditions.
“The settlement was, if you have one of these conditions, and you played and are retired as of July 7, 2014, you get a distribution. And there’s a limited handful of conditions that qualify the former player for compensation, and the first one on the list is ALS,” Florio said. “I think common sense tells us right there: the fact that ALS is on the list, there’s a connection between ALS and football.”
Florio then went on to talk about a study that linked ALS with football:
“There was a study published in 2021 of all professional football players from 1960 through 1991, maybe it was longer than that. 19,000+ players. It was determined that the incidence of ALS among the 19000+ players was 4x greater than the rest of the population.”
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To say this disease is devastating is an understatement, and the evidence that Florio explained has shown that there is indeed a link between ALS and football.
Hopefully, with the recent news of Johnson’s diagnosis and the fact that this conversation is a major topic in the football world, research in finding a cure can be moved one step further.
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