Chris Johnson's Heartfelt Letter Sparks Conversations About NFL and ALS

Former Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson is reflecting on his NFL career — and the potential role it had in his ALS diagnosis.

Johnson, 40, published a letter to his four kids in the Players’ Tribune on Thursday, September 10, where he drew a link between his football days and his diagnosis, which he went public with in June.

“I’ve seen a lot of neurologists at this point and been to basically every major ALS clinic in the country, and in my experience, as soon as you say you played football it’s like, ‘Ahh, OK,’” he wrote. “Almost like an understanding, you know? I read one study, and from my understanding, it found that former NFL players were nearly four times as likely to develop and pass away from ALS compared with the U.S. male population overall. That was a shock.”