Jason Kelce admitted that he believes he has CTE following his dazzling 13-year NFL career following his recent allegations regarding racehorse Secretariat.
The retired Philadelphia Eagles center bizarrely accused Secretariat, the horse that won the Triple Crown in 1973, of cheating during the latest episode of his New Heights podcast with his brother Travis Kelce.
“The Secretariat was stretched thin,” Kelce said on the podcast. ‘It turns out that the Secretariat is right in the heart of the steroid era.
‘(In) 1973, every NFL player, every baseball player, they were getting squeezed to the gills. Don’t you think Secretary was really fucking squeezed? Of course he is the fastest horse of all time.
His comments sparked a backlash on social media, eventually forcing Kelce to apologize, with one user claiming that the legendary center must have CTE, the brain disease that many NFL stars have been diagnosed with post-mortem, especially the veterans playing at the end of their careers.
Jason Kelce admitted he thinks he has CTE after his dazzling 13-year NFL career.
The Philadelphia Eagles legend said he can almost guarantee he has the disease.
Kelce’s bold claims came after he suggested the racehorse Secretariat cheated
‘(You) know who else makes unsubstantiated claims that are not supported by facts. People suffering from CTE. “I admit I don’t know if @JasonKelce suffers from CTE or not, it’s impossible to know,” they posted.
Kelce surprisingly responded to the dig by suggesting that he most likely suffers from the brain disease.
“I mean I can pretty much guarantee I have CTE, all research would suggest I have some degree,” he responded. “I think it’s completely reasonable to assume that I have some degree of that pathology.”
The social media user later insisted he didn’t mean to cause any offence, but Kelce nonchalantly brushed it off and said it was simply the reality he faces.
‘I understand, I’m not offended at all. “What I’m saying is that it’s completely reasonable to think that I have CTE,” he added.
‘Although there is no test to determine if I currently have CTE, the evidence suggests that I probably do. As was the reality that many, if not most, of the top level horses of the 70’s and 80’s were doping because there was no adequate testing available.
“But it doesn’t really achieve anything by mentioning this, I don’t know why I started, Secretariat was still a fantastic horse and a legendary specimen.”
A nonchalant Kelce brushed it off, saying it was simply the reality he faced.
Unsurprisingly, former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown had a less than sensitive response to Kelce’s admission.
Brown, who has become an Internet provocateur attacking people like Tom Brady and Caitlin Clark online, has repeatedly joked about having CTE at X.
The controversial former NFL star even created a social media page known as CTESPN to mock the original ESPN network.
Brown cited a post reporting Kelce’s claim on Twitter and wrote: ‘The first step is admitting it. #CTESPN.’
Kelce was also concerned about the impact of CTE toward the end of his career, Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported after the end of the Eagles’ 2023 season and just weeks before the veteran announced his retirement.
He reportedly had a hard time remembering the date of a teammate’s injury and joked that it was “the CTE coming up.”
Antonio Brown, predictably, had an insensitive response to Kelce’s admission.
The former NFL wide receiver has repeatedly joked about having CTE on social media.
Kelce previously expressed concern about the impacts of CTE during his Amazon Prime documentary last year.
“There have been little things that aren’t big yet, but will become big the more I play,” he said.
“I don’t want to dress like an elephant in the NFL room, but I’m afraid of what the long-term impacts of playing football will mean. I have two daughters and…some people end up getting CTE and some kids live long, long lives. healthy.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen with that because I’ve thought about it,” he said, thinking about the number of physical impacts on the game and whether “it could come back to haunt me.”