https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2017/09/21/aaron-hernandez-had-cte-and-thats-huge-problem-nfl/691046001/

the former New England Patriots tight end is dead and had spent the last four years of his life not on the field but behind bars for murder. But the revelation Thursday that Hernandez had chronic traumatic encephalopathy when he killed himself will shake the NFL to its core.

Hernandez was just 27 when he died, yet an autopsy of his brain showed he had Stage 3 CTE, the second-worst stage of the disease. His brain had also begun to shrink, and there were large holes in a central membrane.