Another NFL legend has died with a confirmed diagnosis of CTE. Steve McMichael, or “Mongo,” a bearish, hulking defensive tackle who was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 2024 and died almost a year ago, is now confirmed to have had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain condition which has swept through the league’s retirees like a not-so-silent plague.
McMichael died after a yearslong battle with ALS, which, as McMichael’s wife, Misty, pointed out after the revelation of his CTE became public this week, is an all too common blend of ailments contracted by players whose brains have been studied posthumously. NFL players are four times more likely to have contracted ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, than the general population.
