Former Patriots Super Bowl Star Dies By Suicide As Family Points To CTE
This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.
Jordan Devey — often searched online as Jorday Devey due to a common misspelling — has died at age 38. Devey spent eight years in the NFL and suited up for five different teams before he retired in 2020.
Devey went undrafted out of Memphis in 2013 and signed first with the Baltimore Ravens, but the team released him before the season started. He caught on with the New England Patriots later that year and stayed through 2014, winning a Super Bowl ring in his second season.
From there, Devey moved through the league steadily: the 49ers in 2015, the Chiefs from 2016 through 2018, the Raiders in 2019, and finally the Bills in 2020. Over that stretch, he appeared in 44 regular-season games and started 21 of them.
What Jordan Devey’s Family Says About CTE
According to Fox 13 reporter Jeremy Tombs, Devey died by suicide. His parents told Tombs they believe CTE contributed to his death. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma, has turned up in a number of former players after their deaths, including former Titans great Frank Wycheck.
Doctors can only confirm the disease posthumously, through examination at research centers like Boston University’s CTE Center, which has studied the brains of hundreds of former athletes.
Devey isn’t an isolated case. This year alone, several former NFL players have died with CTE cited as a factor, a pattern that keeps raising hard questions about football’s long-term toll on the brain. Families like Aldon Smith’s have pushed for posthumous brain exams for similar reasons, hoping to better understand what their loved ones went through.
The NFL community has extended its condolences to Devey’s family, friends, teammates, and coaches.
Friends And Family Remember Jorday Devey
Jorday Devey’s parents, Leslie and Kerry, described a son whose personality matched his 6-foot-7 frame.
“He was always energetic, athletic, kind, generous, full of laughs,” Leslie said, via FOX 13.
Growing up in American Fork, Devey never actually played football for his high school — he marched in the band as a tuba player instead. Football came later, after a Latter-day Saint mission to Costa Rica, where a teammate on the Tongan national rugby team convinced him to give the sport a real shot.
He picked it back up at Snow College, met his future wife Linsey, and eventually earned a scholarship to Memphis. Friends and family remember him as devoted to his four kids, describing him as an “ultimate family dad” who coached football at a local Idaho high school after retiring in 2021.
In a final act of generosity, Devey’s organ donor status allowed his parents to turn tragedy into something that could help others.
