Life After Football – Living With Brain Damage

Rob Kelly retired from the NFL in 2002 at the age of 28 after 5 seasons as a professional footballer…four with the New Orleans Saints and one with the New England Patriots.

Prior to that he played college football for Ohio State and then before that he played in high school. All in all he spent about 20 years playing football.

Now in his 40s he’s living the aftermath of that…he is one of the countless players that has been officially diagnosed with CTE…brain damage from years of playing high impact football.

He’s part of a lawsuit against the NFL that accuses the organization of covering up information that they had about concussions. Kelly is more than 4,500 former athletes that sued the league, accusing it of concealing the dangers of concussions and rushing injured players back onto the field.

His wife Emily wrote about the impact of Rob’s brain damage on her and the family in a piece that was published in the New York Times on Super Bowl Sunday. The Kelly family moved to Colorado in part, because of medicinal marijuana which they say has helped Rob.

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