Two former Denver Broncos stars will donate brains to science after death to aid head hits research

Two ex-NFL stars have said they are willing to donate their brains to science in aid of research into a degenerative disease associated with repeated head hits.

Former Denver Broncos quarterback Jeb Putzier, 43, and tightend Jake Plummer, 47, both believe repeated concussions during their careers may shorten their lives.

A 2017 Boston University study found that 99 percent of ex-NFL players who donated their brain to science were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) after death.

CTE, previously known as 'punch drunk' disorder, is a brain disease suspected to be caused by repeated blows to the head.

Jake Plummer (left) throws a pass against the Oakland Raiders in 2006. Right: Jeb Putzier warms up ahead of a match against the Seattle Seahawks on August 22, 2009

Symptoms include memory loss, slurring of speech, and some of the same symptoms as Parkinson's disease.

But it doesn't always appear on brain scans, making volunteers like Putzier and Plummer essential to scientists' research into the disease.

Putzier told Fox that he sustained around 1,000 concussions during a decade-long NFL career.

He said: 'I have trouble with my eyes. It’s hard for me. I don’t read left to right like that anymore. I was an English literature major and I can’t read anymore.'

Plummer added that he's now having second thoughts about whether he should have played football at all.

He said: 'When I got out of the league and I had hip surgeries, and Junior Seau took his life and I went and watched the movie "Concussion". Yeah, I was starting to wonder why I even played the game.'

Plummer retired in 2008 after a decade-long NFL career.

Putzier hung up his helmet in 2010 after eight years in the NFL. 

An autopsy earlier this year confirmed that ex-Bronco Demaryius Thomas had CTE when he collapsed and died aged just 33.

Thomas was driving 70mph when he flipped his car in 2019 and ultimately cracked the windshield with his head. 

The Jaws of Life were needed to extract Thomas from the vehicle, according to the New York Times.

'He had two different conditions in parallel,' Boston University's Dr. Ann McKee told the newspaper, explaining that seizures are not typically linked with CTE.

Quarterback Jake Plummer is pictured for his 2008 NFL headshot, shortly before he retired

Putzier poses for his 2009 official headshot ahead of his final season in the football league

Thomas was suffering from 'memory loss, paranoia and isolation' in the final years of his life, all of which are indicators of CTE. 

Dr. Ann McKee, Professor at Boston University School of Medicine, diagnosed Demaryius Thomas with CTE after his death

His paranoia became so severe, Thomas's father Bobby said, his son never left home without a gun.

Thomas was one of more than 300 ex-NFL players diagnosed with the brain disease by Boston University's CTE Center.

Meanwhile, the NCAA was found not to blame for the death of an ex-USC football player diagnosed with permanent brain damage.

Matthew Gee, a linebacker on USC's 1990 Rose Bowl-winning squad, endured an estimated 6,000 hits as a college athlete, lawyers for his widow said. 

They alleged those impacts caused permanent brain damage and led to cocaine and alcohol abuse that eventually killed him at age 49. 

Gee died in his sleep at his Simi Valley, California home on December 31, 2018.

The NCAA, the governing body of US college sports, said it had nothing to do with Gee's death, which it said was a sudden cardiac arrest brought on by untreated hypertension and acute cocaine toxicity.

Plummer throws a pass for the Arizona Cardinals against the Baltimore Ravens in 1997

Ex-Bronco Demaryius Thomas collapsed and died while suffering from CTE aged just 33

Hundreds of wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits have been brought by college football players against the NCAA in the past decade, but Gee's was the first one to reach a jury. 

The suit alleged that hits to the head led to CTE, a link that failed to persuade the jury in the $55million ruling.

Judge Terry Green told jurors in Los Angeles Superior Court they 'made history' in the first case of its kind.

The verdict likely gives the NCAA more leverage in future cases, said Dan Lust, a sports law attorney and professor at New York Law School.

'Any plaintiff's attorney is going to think twice before putting all the chips on the table and pushing them to the middle and saying, ''We're going to take our case to trial and see what happens,''' Lust said.

CTE is apparent in sections from a normal brain (top row) as compared with ex-University of Texas football player Greg Ploetz (bottom), who died in 2015 with severe frontal lobe damage