DeAndre Levy Testifies That He Was Told Not to Discuss CTE, Brain Injuries

Former Detroit Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy testified in front of Democratic members of the Energy and Commerce and Judiciary committees Friday and said he was told not to publicly discuss brain injuries and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, after he wrote a letter to the Detroit Free Press addressing the topics in March 2016. 

"The moment I said anything about it, I had two calls telling me that I shouldn't talk about it," Levy said, according to the Detroit Free Press' Dave Birkett. "I wrote the paper, and I was told not to talk about it the first day that it was out, and I'm just like, it could have been just because locker room culture is nobody wants to talk about anything other than football, but it didn’t sit well with me when I’m talking about a brain injury."

Levy added that he thought the Lions' actions in this instance shed light on how executives can try and mask the severity of brain injuries. 

"It's not my shoulder," he said, per Birkett. "It's my brain. It controls everything I do. It controls everything we think, we feel, and if I don't have the right to speak about that as a player, I think it kind of really speaks about the culture of the NFL. What the conversations are. I think that's indicative of the conversations that we don't hear. The closed-door conversations between the owners, they still are trying to find ways to silence us."

The Lions later released a statement disputing that account. 

"We are aware of [Levy's] comments and we strongly disagree with his claim that anyone from our organization tried to silence him," the team said, according to ESPN.com's Michael Rothstein. 

In the letter, Levy disclosed he had thought about how the game's physical nature started to affect his brain and said it crossed his mind that he could be diagnosed with the degenerative disease at some point. 

"I became numb to the fact that CTE could be present in me," he wrote. "Like maybe my head buzzing a day after a game isn't normal. Maybe the emotional highs and lows of a football game/season and beyond aren’t normal. Maybe when I forget something, there's more to it than just forgetfulness."

Levy also wrote that it was "unacceptable to prioritize the marketability and profitability of football over the real health risks associated with it."

A 2009 third-round draft pick, Levy spent the first eight years of his career in the Motor City before he was released in March following a pair of injury-plagued seasons. 

Months later, the 30-year-old filed an injury grievance against the Lions, claiming they passed Levy on his physical before cutting him even though he wasn't fully recovered from surgery to repair a torn meniscus.