Bernie Kosar built his legacy by leading Cleveland on Sundays and winning championships long before that. But according to the former Cleveland Browns quarterback, the toughest battles of his life began long after he hung up his cleats. Reflecting on his health struggles, Kosar revealed how difficult everyday communication had become before he kicked off his journey to recovery. 

“To be able to enunciate, articulate, communicate without being medicated with psychoactive drugs, to still be introverted and manage anxiety and fear with early stage of dementia, yet to still be able to travel together, to be able to sit here and enunciate, articulate, communicate, talk about these types of issues. I’m not proud of it; it’s challenging to admit some of these things,” Kosar admitted on The Game Plan with Meg Bulger. “I’d rather talk about winning a national championship as a registered freshman rather [than] talking about [graduating] in two and a half years, getting a Super Bowl, doing some of the stuff I did off the field in the business perspective.

“But those are things that you could Google and you could read. Some of the life lessons that you really learned from your failures and addressing them. Not trying to sweep them under the table. But here I am, a guy who couldn’t put multiple-syllable words together a few years ago.”

The past few years have been nothing short of a nightmare for Kosar. Once the Browns’ stalwart quarterback, Kosar was brought down with diagnoses of Parkinson’s disease and early-stage dementia, followed by cirrhosis of the liver. The quarterback suffered numerous hits to his body in his playing career, including some serious ones to his head. In 2014, Kosar said that his slurred speech due to multiple concussions cost him a job as a broadcaster.

Kosar had received a liver transplant in November 2025, but began 2026 in the hospital to treat some issues with the new liver in his body. On May 2, he updated fans that he once again had to seek some treatment. However, on May 19, Kosar told News 5 Cleveland that he’d marked six months since his liver transplant, and seemed very healthy.

In that interview, Kosar was shown a clip of himself from 2017, where his speech was noticeably slower and lacked energy. He then said that it’s remarkable how far he’s come, and that was only made possible after some lifestyle changes.

“Thankfulness is one thing,” he told News 5, when asked about his reaction to the older clip. “But also the fear to say, ‘Oh my God, is that really me? That was right around nine years ago, where I was told, ‘You keep living like that, and that type of lifestyle, you’ll only have five years left of cognitive brain functions.”

Bernie Kosar won one Super Bowl ring with the Browns and spent 12 years in the NFL. For decades, fans have celebrated the legendary quarterback’s résumé, who powered through everything that came his way. But now, it’s his ability to keep moving forward even when life becomes far more challenging that motivates the fans.