Jake Plummer took direct aim at Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones for saying it is “absurd” to think there is a link between brain trauma, football and CTE.
Speaking with Ryan Koenisberg of BSNDenver.com, Plummer unloaded on Jones and others like him who refuse to acknowledge the connection. He’s watched many of his friends fall into deep depression and deep addictions taking painkillers while the NFL continues to keep its players from taking advantage of CBD, a substance found in cannabis that is far more effective without the devastating side effects.
“I have a hard time with it because everybody says, ‘Oh, poor NFL millionaires. Oh, you poor people.’ They don’t understand,” he says to BSN Denver from the highway. “Maybe they should have a little more to say about the owners that are billionaires, they’re not millionaires; they’re billionaires.
“Like Jerry Jones, who says it’s ‘absurd’ that there would be a link between brain trauma, football and CTE,” Plummer adds. “Shame on him for saying that, that billionaire a–hole. It’s the worst thing in the world for a guy like that to say. That’s where we’re sitting; grown-a** men are asked to go out there for millions of dollars—which, yeah, it’s a lot of money—bang themselves around and completely [expletive] their lives over for their 40s and 50s. So yeah, poor football players is what I say. If you’re a grown-a** man, you should be allowed to make grown-a** decisions.”
Plummer takes CBD daily to help him cope with the daily pain he deals with after playing 10 years in the NFL.
He also thinks it’s absurd that a young player like Josh Gordon has been banned from the league for smoking marijuana.
“It didn’t derail him or cause him to underachieve from what I witnessed,” Plummer said. “He dominated the league for two straight years, and now he’s out of the league because he chose an alternative form of medicine.”
Plummer joins a growing chorus of former NFL players who are pushing the league to legalize the use of CBD as an alternative to opiates, which have ruined lives. Free agent offensive tackle Eugene Monroe became the first current player to become an outspoken advocate. More recently Derrick Morgan of the Tennessee Titans said the NFL has a responsibility to look into cannabis as a viable medicine.
Based on the early research being done on CBD on brain trauma, and based on America’s recent change of heart, the league really does need to adjust its stance on this substance.