Retired NFL player Alphonso Smith Jr. was found dead in a Florida housing community on Wednesday. The former Detroit Lions and Denver Broncos cornerback’s death was reported as a suicide.
The NFL’s Tarnished History With CTE Defines Incidents Like Alphonso Smith Jr.’s Death
Smith Jr. was a defensive back for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons starting in 2004, earning All-American honors in 2007 and 2008. His NFL career ended in 2012, meaning the ACC standout played high-level football for nearly a decade.
There have been no official reports of CTE in connection with Smith Jr.’s death, but the truth is irrelevant when it comes to public relations. The NFL is fighting an uphill battle on the CTE front, as a recent report from NPR states that a minimum of 25% of players who died from 2016 to 2021 and appeared in at least one NFL game had CTE. High-profile CTE-related suicide cases like Junior Seau, Aaron Hernandez, and Dave Duerson have resulted in fans strongly correlating former NFL players’ suicides with CTE.
Regardless of whether Smith Jr. committed suicide due to mental health problems that can be linked to CTE, fans associate his death with the dangers of the NFL. Rachel Grasow, a senior research scientist at Harvard, explained that NFL players commit suicide at a higher rate than other professional athletes in a Harvard study.
“When we split the data at 2011, we found that prior to 2011, NFL, MLB, and NBA players also had the same rate of death by suicide,” Grasow said. “From 2011 to 2019, however, we saw an almost threefold increase in suicide among NFL players when compared to these other professional athletes.”
Smith Jr. did not have a history of concussions during his playing time in the NFL, but he did express mental health problems in his final Facebook post.
“Do not cry for me! I tried everything in my power to fight the demons behind the ones that someone put into ME! I did not want to be that WAY! I know I have disappointed so many folks. This is a DEMON in me! But not only me! It’s EVERYONE! I have HURT so many! I needed help & did not get it,” Smith Jr. wrote. “…I pray my soul rest in heaven for my heart is pure, but my BRAIN & experience is MESSED UP!”
Alphonso Smith Jr.’s Death May Have Been About More Than Just CTE
A direct reference to his brain has fans speculating about the nature of Smith Jr.’s suicide, but other things mentioned in his final Facebook post make the picture blurrier. In 2015, he was removed as a coach of the Pahokee high school football team in Florida. According to a WPBF report, the removal was due to allegations of inappropriate conduct.
The former defensive back appeared to reference these allegations in his post, adding to the idea that his suicide might have had multiple contributing factors.
“To my family, BABY, my MOM, my siblings, things happened to your boy, your brother while I was little that an older lady did onto me. As a result guys, I did the same onto others,” wrote Smith Jr.
The nature of the allegations combined with the CTE angle of the suicide make for a dark story as the NFL thrusts its way back into the weekly lives of fans. As CTE-related deaths pile up for the NFL, there will be a breaking point eventually. Either the deaths will become so frequent that they will begin to lose meaning, or the NFL’s increased safety measures will cause the trend to reverse direction.
