As more CTE cases are found within former NFL players' brains, we are becoming less surprised upon hearing about NFL players opting to retire at around age 30. Such is the case for former Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer, who retired from the league at age 31.
Plummer, now 41, spoke to BSN Denver recently about his views of the NFL's drug policy, specifically that it's a "hypocrisy" for the league to penalize players for marijuana drug usage while enduring the potential brain trauma effects accumulated during their careers. He believes the public should begin to hold the NFL owners accountable, not the players who opt to play. "I have a hard time with it because everybody says, 'Oh, poor NFL millionaires. Oh, you poor people.' They don’t understand," Plummer said. "Maybe they should have a little more to say about the owners that are billionaires, they’re not millionaires; they’re billionaires.
He even went the distance to call out Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as a "billionaire asshole" for denying the connection between CTE and playing football in March.
"Like Jerry Jones, who says it’s ‘absurd’ that there would be a link between brain trauma, football and CTE. Shame on him for saying that, that billionaire asshole. It’s the worst thing in the world for a guy like that to say. That’s where we’re sitting; grown-ass men are asked to go out there for millions of dollars — which, yeah, it’s a lot of money — bang themselves around and completely f--- their lives over for their 40s and 50s. So yeah, poor football players is what I say. If you’re a grown-ass man, you should be allowed to make grown-ass decisions."
Plummer is an advocate who has spoken out about the league needing to alter, or eradicate altogether, its punishment of players using marijuana for pain from concussions. "They should be able to say, 'I’m going to have some CBD and puff on this fatty, relax after a football game and take the pain away,'" Plummer said. "Not get tested for it like Josh Gordon, who now can’t play the game that he’s been playing since he was a kid because he smokes marijuana. It didn’t derail him or cause him to underachieve from what I witnessed. He dominated the league for two straight years, and now he’s out of the league because he chose an alternative form of medicine."
Plummer played in the NFL for 10 seasons with the Arizona Cardinals and Denver Broncos. The former Pro Bowler finished his career with 161 touchdowns and the same number in interceptions.
