Steve McMichael was posthumously diagnosed with CTE, his family said Tuesday, more than a year after the former Chicago Bears star died on April 23, 2025, following a nearly five-year battle with ALS. The announcement came from the family of a player who became one of the defining figures of the Bears’ 1985 championship defense.
Misty McMichael said the family hopes sharing the diagnosis will raise awareness of the long-term effects of repetitive head impacts and the urgent need to advance research. She said McMichael wanted his brain to be studied after he died, a final wish that turned his family’s private grief into a public warning about what football can leave behind.
McMichael’s path to Chicago began when the New England Patriots selected him in the third round of the 1980 NFL Draft with the No. 73 overall pick after his consensus All-America career at the University of Texas. The Patriots released him after six regular-season games in one season, but the move became a turning point rather than an ending.
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He joined the Bears in 1981 and went on to play a franchise-record 191 games for the team, becoming a starter at defensive tackle in 1983. Over 13 seasons in Chicago from 1981 to 1993, McMichael piled up 92.5 sacks, second only to Richard Dent in team history, and made the Pro Bowl twice, in 1986 and 1987. He was also a two-time first-team All-Pro.
McMichael helped lead the Bears to their only Super Bowl title to date in 1985 and started at left defensive tackle in Super Bowl XX, where he recorded a sack against the Patriots. That defense has long been remembered as one of the best in NFL history, and McMichael was central to its identity.
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His career did not end in Chicago. McMichael played one season for the Green Bay Packers and retired after the 1994 season, then briefly appeared with the WWF before spending five years wrestling and commenting for World Championship Wrestling. The later chapters of his life drew a different kind of attention: he revealed in 2021 that he was battling ALS, and in 2024 he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The family’s disclosure lands at a moment when McMichael’s name already carries unusual weight in football memory. He died after the disease that had publicly defined his final years, and now his posthumous CTE diagnosis adds another layer to the story of a player who hit hard, was hit hard, and asked that his brain be studied when he was gone. For his family, the message is no longer only about one man’s career. It is about what the sport still has to reckon with.
