Tampa Bay Buccaneers legend Warren Sapp has never been shy about pointing out the effects former NFL players have after they retire from the game. This time around, he has emphasized that the players’ relationships are affected because they face their problems alone and act like a “tough guy.”
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“I tell them all the time, we used to do that,” Sapp told Christopher Nowinski, CEO of the Concussion and CTE Foundation. “We used to be that good. We used to do some special, special things. We’re not what we used to be. So now we have to ask for help.”
He talked about how players fail to accept the changes that come with age and the physical toll over the years. He talked about how many of the former athletes are now “50-plus-year-old men” and are grandfathers who want to be around their grandchildren and need to communicate their problems to get relief as they try to handle other relationships.
“We’re grandfathers now. And if we’re going to be grandfathers and play with the babies, we want to be around. And we definitely want to be coherent and not have rage or some of these fits or any of these things going on because nobody wants their child around that,” Sapp continued.
Sapp has always been supportive of players trying to fight against their mental problems that may have been caused by their long-term careers in football. Sapp also said former athletes shouldn’t fight these problems alone.
“Make it better. Don’t sit there and fight it. Because fighting don’t do nothing but make it worse. I’m sure of that. Because now you’re isolated by yourself. Forget something. You’re going to get frustrated. Come on. That’s the slippery slope you don’t want to get to. You want to surround yourself with great people and people who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear,” Sapp said.
Sapp, who had an illustrious career with the Buccaneers after being selected 12th overall in the 1995 NFL Draft, won a Super Bowl, and earned four first-team All-Pro honors, has always been there for former athletes.
Sapp has even said to donate his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation for further research on concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This came after he started having memory issues that affected his day-to-day life.
A recent study by researchers from Boston University revealed that about 74.5 percent of the NFL players had CTE. This figure came from the University’s testing of 387-396 donated brains from former NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023. Sapp didn’t sit quietly on this study as well, asking the league to take the research seriously and work on players’ safety accordingly.
“75 gives us a number that we can work from, and that’s not a good number at all. We’re talking about three-fourths. Three-fourths? Let’s take care of the men and let’s take care of the game because it’s a beautiful game,” Sapp said.
While Sapp talked about the safety concerns of the players, he didn’t want any change in the physicality aspect of the sport itself, and said that “there’s nothing wrong with a little combat, nothing wrong with 60 minutes of some down-and-dirty four quarters.”
He instead focused on measures that could be taken to further safeguard players and urged the league to use the University’s research to “attack” and “end” CTE.
“We are the keys to the gate. We are the keys to the lock. Let’s go in, get to studies, put it out there, and let’s find a way to end this horrible, horrible disease,” Sapp said.
Sapp continues to speak for players dealing with the long-term effects of CTE and major concussions that may have affected their mundane things and way of living.