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DALLAS, June 29 (UPI) -- Former Denver Broncos gunslinger Jake Plummer didn't mince words when he recently spoke to BSN Denver about Jerry Jones. Plummer talked to Ryan Koenigsberg about the "drug problem in the NFL." He spoke about painkiller addiction, depression, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and its plague on the league as part of an interview series.
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"I have a hard time with it because everybody says, 'Oh, poor NFL millionaires. Oh, you poor people.' They don't understand," Plummer told Koenigsberg. "Maybe they should have a little more to say about the owners that are billionaires, they're not millionaires; they're billionaires."
Jones called the link between concussions in football and brain disease "absurd," in a March interview with the Washington Post. The Dallas Cowboys owner said this, despite scientific evidence to the contrary and an admission of the link by the the NFL's senior vice president for health and safety.
He later tried to backtrack, telling ESPN that his point was to explain that the NFL's stance had not changed on the issue as it continues to "collecting data."
Plummer dealt with hip issues and other various lingering injuries following his career with the Broncos and Arizona Cardinals. The 41-year-old completed 2,484-of-4,350 pass attempts for 29,253 yards, 161 touchdowns, and 161 interceptions in his 10-year career. He also was selected to the 2005 Pro Bowl as a member of the Broncos.
"[Billionaires] Like Jerry Jones, who says it's 'absurd' that there would be a link between brain trauma, football and CTE," Plummer told Koenigsberg. "Shame on him for saying that, that billionaire [expletive]. It's the worst thing in the world for a guy like that to say. That's where we're sitting; grown-[expletive] 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-[expletive] man, you should be allowed to make grown-[expletive] decisions."
Jones, 73, has been the owner, president, and general manager of the Cowboys since 1989. The team has a 230-202 record, including three Super Bowl victories, during his tenure. Jones notoriously bought the franchise for $140 million and it is now worth north of $4 billion, according to Forbes. Jones himself is valued at about $5 billion, Forbes reports.
Plummer takes Cannabidiol or CBD, one of the 113 compounds found in cannabis, everyday, according to Koenigsberg.
"They should be able to say, 'I'm going to have some CBD and puff on this fatty, relax after a football game and take the pain away,'" Plummer said. "Not get tested for it like Josh Gordon, who now can't play the game that he's been playing since he was a kid because he smokes marijuana. It didn't derail him or cause him to underachieve from what I witnessed. He dominated the league for two straight years, and now he's out of the league because he chose an alternative form of medicine."
