Slater, McCourty and others around the league react to latest CTE findings

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Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) may be more common among football players that originally thought.

CTE is a degenerative brain disease found in people with a history of repeated head trauma; and on Tuesday, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study by Boston University that found it in 99 percent of brains in NFL players, 91 percent of brains of college football players and 21 percent of brains in high school football players.

The latest study took place from February of 2008 to May 2016 and found that out of 111 brains of deceased NFL players, all but one had CTE.

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So with many NFL players reporting back to their stadiums on Wednesday for the start of training camp, a few of them offered their reaction to the latest study.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous,” said Carolina Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis after calling the latest findings "alarming."

After admitting that he has had small memory lapses, Cleveland Browns tackle Joe Thomas said, "I'm not worried about it right now."

Matthew Slater of the New England Patriots stated, “As a player, you’re definitely thankful that they are starting to look into that and do the necessary research and hopefully get us to a better place when it comes to that. But being married to a pathologist, I know that there’s a lot I don’t know. And there’s a lot that we still have yet to learn. I let my wife do the worrying about that and I just try to focus on playing football, understanding that there are inherent risks with playing this game, understanding all the things involving that. I hope for players past, present and future that we can continue that research, continue to search for things and see where it gets us.”

Patriots safety Devin McCourty also commented on the issue.

“For all of us, technology has showed that we’re getting more and more research,” he said, “I think the good thing as players is that the NFL and the NFLPA are finding ways to get all of that information to us and making us knowledgeable of the situation. But I think all of us decide to play football, and that’s why we’re back here in training camp ready to go and compete for another year. It’s good to get that research and learn from it.”

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