For most football players, their first big injury was either in college football or the NFL. Ahman Green was different. It was almost like he chased injuries right from his childhood. He was just a young lad when he accidentally fell off a ledge and got a rod stuck in his jaw. Years later, he suffered two broken wrists and a concussion after running into a wall in a gym. He was simply racing a friend. 

That trend continued in his professional career. A knee injury. Quadriceps Rupture. Hamstring injury. Multiple concussions. Despite that, he gave kids from the 90s and early 2000s a ‘hero’ figure to look up to. It surely helped that he was also nicknamed ‘Batman’. But his body was constantly on the line for the Green Bay Packers, and today, he has come forth with some unfortunate news. 

“Last year, I got diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s,” he revealed on the Go Long podcast. “I had a little bit of the feet twitching when I’m in my sleep and stuff like that. I knew something was going on long before that. I just got hold of some doctors that I was able to get in contact with and get the diagnostics, get the testing, and finally got it tested.”

However, having learned a lot about life from football, Green used a football analogy to share his outlook on life. 

“So I know, unfortunately, there’s a day where we eventually, our clock stops ticking. The way I look at it, ‘Hey, my clock is going to stop ticking when I want it to stop ticking.’ That’s how I’m looking at it. I don’t care if it’s the ’85 Bears on this defense right now. It’s going to be a hard day for them because I’m going. I’m not going to die easy.”

Before going public with his diagnosis, Green wanted his family to hear it from him first. He sat down with his children and other relatives to break the news before it became a headline.

Unfortunately, NFL players are four times more likely to suffer from neurodegenerative diseases than the general population, as per research. This was attributed to repeated hits to the head, and like many other NFL players, Green experienced it all, too.

When Ahman Green detailed his most painful hit in the NFL

His 2003 season was unforgettable. Green was the greatest ball carrier the Packers have ever seen. That season, he recorded 405 405 regular season touches. History shows that only 45 players league-wide ever went beyond the 400-touch mark in a season, and Green was the only Green Bay player to ever do so. 

But as per his own confession in 2025, that was the same season he suffered a painful hit from Brian Urlacher.

“It was a cheap shot,” Green mentioned last year. “He speared me. And in front of the referees and everything. On that hit, I realized, if I was a boxer, that I got a good chin because he hit me dead on my chin [with his helmet]. He spun me around so hard.”

Years later, Green still believes the referees should have thrown the flag. 

Ahman Green’s legacy with the Green Bay Packers

Across eight seasons split into two stints with the Packers, Green ran for a total of 8,322 yards in the regular season, still the most in team history, and scored 54 rushing touchdowns. He was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 2014.

However, Green is not the first Packers great to share this kind of news either. Former quarterback Brett Favre is also suffering from Parkinson’s. Also, Green’s diagnosis follows that of former Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson, who is battling ALS.

At the peak of his career, Green recorded six seasons with more than 1,000 rushing yards, five of them being consecutive. All of them were recorded at Green Bay. He went on to play two seasons with the Houston Texans before returning to the green and gold for his final year in the NFL. He eventually retired in 2011.

While Parkinson’s has no cure, with proper treatment, symptoms can be managed. And based on how Green is addressing it, he plans to face this the same way he faced the league’s top defenses for over a decade.