Wow, looks like his driving off the road last year might not have been an “accident” after all. Too bad. He was a great player.
Pretty shocking, gotta wonder if there was some brain damage (ala Dave Duerson) that brought this on.
Shocking and terrible. He was a great player and seemed like a decent guy to me.
I gasped audibly when I read your thread title.
How sad. He was one of my favorite players, and it’s terrible that his life ended like this.
Is this really a surprise? Wasn’t there some previous history with suicide attempts?
Sucks. Seemed like a decent guy.
Considering he shot his chest I suspect his brain will be donated/studied. (Which is why Duerson shot his chest)
This is tough to take. Growing up in San Diego, you had two sports idols - Tony Gwynn and Junior Seau. Unbelievably, he is now the eighth member of the 94/95 AFC Championship team to have died. 
Sad news. RIP Junior.
Here’s an article from Dec 2011: Death Is Stalking The 1994 Chargers
Junior is the 8th member of that team to have already passed away.
So did I.
me2
Wow, I’m shocked. I always admired him as a Charger and, as a Patriots fan, was honored to have him play for us near the end of his career. How sad.
Passion like that cuts both ways.
That’s terrible. RIP Junior.
I didn’t, but my eyes opened wide. RIP.
He was more than a great player. 12 time Pro-Bowler. How many of those are there?
I hope his brain makes it to the Sports Legacy Institute at Boston University. Maybe they could answer some questions.
None, as of today. As a Trojan, I’m kinda bummed. 
Did he have any sort of history with concussions or other head injuries during his (admittedly long) career? It seems like that might be a hot topic if so.
There’s a nice personal story about Seau from Saint’s backup center Eric Olsen posted on ProFootballTalk.
He was way too young to die.
Marcellus Wiley gave a very moving tribute to Seau on ESPN. Warning: this is hard to watch without tearing up. Even with what we’ve started to learn about the head trauma football can cause, this one’s a shock. It’s hard to reconcile this - and the evident suicide attempt a year and a half ago - with what we knew about him as a player. This is the first one of these deaths that makes me wonder what I’m doing when I watch football. I enjoy it very much and I don’t expect to quit watching it, but I also don’t want to watch guys beat their brains to jelly for my amusement. Even if you ignore any ethical issues there, it’s not fun to watch the game if you know that’s what is happening.
He was never diagnosed with one as far as I know. The really troubling thing here is that, while concussions are bad for your brain, the bigger problem for football players is the long-term impact of sub-concussive hits. Those hits still carry a lot of kinetic energy, and sustaining thousands and thousands of them in practices and games in school and in the pros is bad news even if you never sustain a full concussion.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
This is the first one of these deaths that makes me wonder what I’m doing when I watch football. I enjoy it very much and I don’t expect to quit watching it, but I also don’t want to watch guys beat their brains to jelly for my amusement. Even if you ignore any ethical issues there, it’s not fun to watch the game if you know that’s what is happening.
[/QUOTE]
Well said. I feel the same: can I keep watching and enjoying the NFL knowing what it may be doing to these guys long term? I don’t know the answer to that right now.