Next up video playing in 10 seconds
Given that nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults are dealing with anxiety, depression, or another mental health condition, it’s not surprising that many household names — including celebrated athletes in the National Football League (NFL) — have struggled with their own psychological issues, too.
NFL players face an increased risk for depression, confusion, aggression, and other mental health challenges, according to an article published in the American Psychological Association (APA)’s Monitor on Psychology. Blame lies in part with the repeated head injuries so common in collision sports like football. Those head injuries, in turn, can cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease, according to research published in July 2022 in Frontiers in Neurology.
What’s more, pro football’s ultra-masculine culture is a breeding ground for negative attitudes about mental health problems. As players grow up and train in this sport, they’re often told to “suck it up” and “push through” when they encounter challenges, which can make it difficult to be open about psychological pain, according to Dwight Hollier, a licensed professional counselor and former NFL player, in the Monitor on Psychology article.
To combat that stigma, about a decade ago the NFL launched a league-wide initiative called “Total Wellness,” which provides treatment resources to “all people in the NFL family.” That initiative, in part, may explain why more and more NFL players have recently gone public about their own mental health struggles.
When top athletes and others in the public eye share their experiences with mental illness it helps dispel lingering taboos surrounding the topic and inspires others to seek treatment, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Read on to see how nine football stars deal with their own psychological challenges and what they want others who are struggling to know.
Bobby Wagner
In January 2023, NFL players, personnel, and fans around the country — including Los Angeles Rams linebacker Bobby Wagner — watched in shock and horror when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest after tackling a Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver. Medical staff intervened quickly to save Hamlin’s life.
While addressing the media in the days afterward, Wagner urged players to take time to process their feelings about what happened.
“You have traumatic experiences, you have to find a way to deal with them,” Wagner told reporters. “The best way to deal with them is expressing those feelings. The thing that we’re taught to do in this sport because it’s such a quote, unquote ‘manly sport’ is to hide your feelings, hide your emotions, and any expression of these feelings and emotions makes you less of a man. I think that’s a myth. Talking about your feelings, talking about things that affect you mentally, physically are more manly than anything because it takes a lot of courage to talk about those things.”
Wagner reflected on a similar experience he had in 2015, when he played for the Seattle Seahawks. In a game against the Dallas Cowboys, Wagner’s teammate at the time, Ricardo Lockette, was hit hard by a Cowboys player during a punt return, rendering Lockette motionless on the field. Lockette ultimately needed surgery to repair ligament damage in his neck, the NFL reported.
“[The hit on Lockette] wasn’t as extreme, but if the Seahawks didn’t do everything that they did, one wrong move, one wrong thing — Ricardo wouldn’t be even here today,” Wagner told reporters.
One of the most important takeaways from that situation, Wagner said, is for people to talk about the emotional impact it had on them. “Just try to let people talk and have their feelings and respect people’s feelings,” said Wagner.
Dak Prescott
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott opened up about the emotional distress he experienced as a result of his mother’s death from colon cancer in 2013, the COVID-19 pandemic, and his 31-year-old brother Jace’s death by suicide in April 2020. (Suicide was the second leading cause of death among U.S. adults ages 25 to 34 in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)
“It’s crazy. All throughout the offseason, this quarantine and this offseason, I started experiencing emotions I’ve never felt before — anxiety for the main one,” Prescott revealed in an interview for In Depth With Graham Bensinger that aired in September 2020. “And then honestly a couple of days before my brother passed, I would say I started experiencing depression. I didn’t know necessarily what I was going through, to say the least, and hadn’t been sleeping at all.”
After his brother died, Prescott realized that he needed to reach out to those around him for support. “Our adversity, our struggles, what we go through is always going to be too much for ourselves, and maybe too much for even one or two people, but never, never too much for a community. Or never too much for the people in the family that you love. So, we have to share those things,” he told Bensinger.
For National Suicide Prevention Month in September 2021, Prescott launched the “Ask 4 Help” campaign to “prioritize mental health and stop the epidemic of suicide,” according to an Instagram post.
A.J. Brown
Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown discussed dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts in a now-deleted video he posted to Instagram in November 2021, when he played for the Tennessee Titans, according to Bleacher Report. In it, he described a night in November 2020 when he thought about taking his life. “I had no more hope for better days, and everything was just going wrong for me," Brown said in the video.
“I didn’t know, really didn’t take into consideration what depression really was. I always just brushed it off. That’s how I grew up. I just brushed off my feelings, and it got the best of me,” Brown explained at a press conference posted online on November 18, 2021, a few days after his Instagram video went live.
At the same press conference, he tackled the fear men face when being open about mental illness. “Us as men, to be honest, our feelings aren’t too much cared about,” Brown said.
Science backs him up. According to research published in August 2020 in the American Journal of Men’s Health, stigma is an “extreme barrier” that keeps many men from seeking the help they need.
Brown credits therapy with improving his mental health and “still [goes] to this day.” His advice to others in emotional pain? ”Especially men, get things off your chest. It’s okay to talk to someone. Seek help. You’re not too tough to talk to someone,” he said at the press conference.
Carl Nassib
Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Carl Nassib, formerly of the Las Vegas Raiders, made history when he became the first active NFL player to come out as gay in a June 2021 Instagram post.
In a press conference, Nassib described speaking publicly about his sexual orientation as a big relief. "It was definitely stressful growing up and being in the closet and doing all that," he said. "It has been a great weight off my shoulders. I've been out to my family and friends for years at this point, so it has been good to not have to lie when I come to work every day. It has been good."
As part of his announcement, Nassib revealed he was donating $100,000 to The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ+ youth. And the following year, during Pride Month in 2022, Nassib again revealed he was donating another $100,000 to the organization. The reason, he explained, is because “out there right now there's a kid saying that I'd rather be dead than be gay," People reported.
LGBTQ+ youth have a fourfold greater risk of attempting suicide than their peers, mainly due to mistreatment and stigmatization in society, according to The Trevor Project.
Calvin Ridley
In October 2021, Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Calvin Ridley announced he was stepping away from football to focus on his mental health. “This will help me be the best version of myself now and in the future,” tweeted Ridley, who played for the Atlanta Falcons at the time.
Ridley, who was suspended for the 2022 season from the NFL for betting on games during the 2021 season, recently updated fans on his well-being: “Going to see my family in Guyana soon,” he said in one Twitter post. “Also, I’m doing great,” he said in another.
Lane Johnson
Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Lane Johnson delved into his struggles with anxiety and depression in an interview with Jay Glazer that aired in October 2021. “I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in college,” Johnson revealed. “The monster kept building and building and building.”
In the thick of his mental health struggles, Johnson lost touch with his sense of self, he told Glazer. His mounting anxiety had a debilitating effect on his physical health, too, causing symptoms including nausea, vomiting, and tremors in his hands.
Johnson reached a breaking point in the fall of 2021 and decided to briefly step away from football to address his mental health issues. “Depression and anxiety are things I’ve dealt with for a long time and kept hidden from my friends and family,” Johnson disclosed in a Twitter post on October 18, 2021, upon his return to football.
It took Johnson a while to address his life-disrupting emotional pain because he felt shame for it, he explained. “In this league, the NFL, where it’s a gladiator-sized sport, it’s something that is not often talked about, but is often felt throughout the league,” Johnson told Glazer.
With treatment, Johnson said, he was able to “get back into a good mindset again.” His advice to others: “Find your closest friend, family member. Tell a loved one. And if it’s to a degree of seriousness, there’s always help around the corner.”
Everson Griffen
Former Minnesota Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen announced on Instagram in December 2021 that he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a mental health condition that causes extreme shifts in mood and energy, toggling between euphoric highs (aka “mania”) and deep lows (aka “depression”). Bipolar disorder affects 1 in 40 Americans, according to Mental Health America.
“I will embrace it, and I will be an advocate for mental health,” Griffen wrote. “I been running from it for a long time. I’m not ashamed of it anymore.”
Griffen’s announcement came shortly after a November 2021 incident during which he called 911, believing there were intruders in his home. He also told police that he had fired a gun but that no one was hurt, according to a statement by the NFL. Once police determined there were no intruders, they — along with Minnesota Vikings team psychologists — spent hours getting Griffen to agree to be transported via ambulance to a local healthcare facility, NBC News reported.
On Instagram, Griffen divulged that his mental pain began spiraling after his mother’s death. “Went into a dark place,” Griffen wrote. Going forward, Griffen added, he would follow the advice of medical experts and his wife to stay well.
D.J. Chark
Detroit Lions wide receiver D.J. Chark informed fans about his lifelong mental health struggles in a video for the NFL’s Mental Health and Wellness Series. Growing up, he’d had a hard time managing life, school, football, and relationships. But it wasn’t until he reached college that he was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.
“There were times where I would be fearful about things that I had no control over,” Chark said.
Chark continues to go to therapy and takes prescription anti-anxiety medication daily. Nearly 16 percent of U.S. adults took prescription medication for their mental health in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, according to a report published in September 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Spending time with family and loved ones also helps keep Chark in a good state of mind, he said.
What he wants others dealing with psychological distress to know is that they’re not alone. “Just know everyone in this world deals with something, and it’s okay to speak and ask for help because once you get help, the feeling of being in control of your life — no one can take that from you,” Chark said.
Hayden Hurst
Cincinnati Bengals tight end Hayden Hurst grew up loving sports, especially baseball and football. During high school, he felt most confident on the pitcher’s mound, even becoming a state champion with his high school team, according to an interview with the NFL Players Association (NFLPA).
After high school, Hurst decided to stick solely with baseball. But once he took his pitching prowess to the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system, Hurst developed anxiety and depression that had a debilitating effect on his performance on the baseball field.
“I developed depression where I would stay in my spring training dorm room in Florida and sit in the dark all day because I didn’t want to come around people,” Hurst said. “I couldn’t really explain what was happening to me.”
For the next three years, Hurst tried to fix his feelings with drugs and alcohol, he said. He also walked away from baseball and joined the University of South Carolina’s football team in the hope it would ease the pain of leaving baseball, he explained in a YouTube video posted in December 2020.
But his emotional pain didn’t go away and in January 2016, Hurst attempted suicide, he told the NFLPA.
After Hurst survived, with support from his family, he was able to give up drugs and alcohol and busy himself with a new goal — to reach the NFL, according to the Atlanta Falcons’ YouTube video.
In April 2018, that dream came true. Hurst was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens. Shortly afterward, he and his family started the Hayden Hurst Family Foundation, a nonprofit geared toward the health, wellness, and education of youth, military, and others in need.
Hurst hopes his story can help keep hope alive for those struggling with a mental health condition. “Keep going,” he advised in another YouTube video, posted by the NFL in September 2021. “Because as dark as it gets, I promise you there’s somebody out there in your life that loves you and that will support you and that’ll help you get out of that situation.”
The new 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at the number 988. The previous Lifeline phone number (1-800-273-8255) remains available to people in emotional distress or suicidal crisis. Free crisis counseling is also accessible by texting HOME to 741-741.