Brett Favre's urgent message for football parents

Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre joins our newest PSA begging parents to wait to enroll their children in tackle football until age 14. The PSA aims to educate parents on research showing that their child’s odds of developing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) double every additional three years they play tackle football.

“Having kids play before high school is just not worth the risk,” says Favre, who started in a record 297 consecutive NFL games over 19 seasons and is widely regarded as the toughest man to ever play the game. ​​​​​"CTE is a terrible disease, and we need to do everything we can to prevent it for the next generation of football players.”

Read the White Paper, learn why age 14 is important, and discover the best ever NFL players who never played youth tackle football on our Flag Football Under 14 page.

While the overall prevalence of CTE in the high school football population is unknown and cannot be determined from a brain bank sample, the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank reports that 16 of 65 high school football players – who never played in college or professionally – have been diagnosed with CTE. 15 of the 16 players with CTE started playing tackle football before age 14.

The odds of developing CTE may increase by 30% per year of tackle football played, according to a 2019 Brain Bank study of 266 deceased football players published in Annals of Neurology. That means a high school football player who started at age five, instead of age 14, might have 10x the odds of developing CTE.

“A football player’s odds of developing CTE may be most determined by their parents, specifically what age the child is allowed to start playing tackle football,” says Concussion Legacy Foundation CEO Chris Nowinski, PhD, a former All-Ivy League defensive tackle at Harvard University.

“It’s time to accept that CTE is not just a risk for professional and college football players, but also for high school players, and the best way to prevent CTE among football players is to delay the introduction of tackle football.”