Former Seau teammate Gary Plummer: 'He was crying out for help'
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Said Plummer: “In the 1990s, I did a concussion seminar. They said a Grade 3 concussion meant you were knocked out, and a Grade 1 meant you were seeing stars after a hit, which made me burst out in laughter. As a middle linebacker in the NFL, if you don’t have five of these (Grade 1 effects) each game, you were inactive the next game.
“Junior played for 20 years. That’s five concussions a game, easily. How many in his career then? That’s over 1,500 concussions. I know that’s startling, but I know it’s true. I had over 1,000 in my 15 years. I felt the effects of it. I felt depression going on throughout my divorce. Junior went through it with his divorce.”
Plummer tells of players struggling to find direction in their post-NFL lives, and he proposes that all players receive mandatory counseling at the end of their careers. Ex-NFLers are too proud to seek help, says Plummer, and he stresses that Seau's example is not an isolated one.
