NFL players reflect on playing despite knowing the risks of CTE

Unlike earlier generations of professional football players, today's NFL athletes have grown up with widespread public awareness of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma. ESPN surveyed more than 30 current NFL players to understand how that awareness shapes their relationship with the sport.

The players' responses varied widely, according to the report, ranging from genuine fear about the long-term effects of playing football to a sense of resignation about risks they consider an unavoidable part of the profession they chose. The survey suggests that even as scientific and public understanding of CTE has grown substantially in recent years, it has not fundamentally altered players' willingness to continue competing at the sport's highest level.

CTE can only be definitively diagnosed posthumously, and research into the condition has intensified following studies of former players' brains that found evidence of the disease at notable rates. That research has fueled broader conversations in American football about player safety, concussion protocols and the long-term health consequences of repeated hits to the head.

The ESPN survey adds to that ongoing conversation by capturing how current players, who came of age amid this heightened awareness, weigh the risks against their careers and love of the game.