{"id":14358,"date":"2012-05-03T17:32:23","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T21:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14358"},"modified":"2012-05-03T17:32:23","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T21:32:23","slug":"suicide-suspected-in-death-of-former-nfl-linebacker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14358","title":{"rendered":"Suicide Suspected In Death Of Former NFL Linebacker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OCEANSIDE, Calif. \u2013 <strong>Junior Seau<\/strong>, regarded as one of the NFL\u2019s elite linebackers over a 20-year career with the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins, and New England Patriots, died of a gunshot wound to the chest Wednesday at his home. He was 43.<\/p>\n<p>Police said<strong> Seau\u2019s<\/strong> death was being investigated as a suicide. He was found by his girlfriend in a bedroom and a handgun was found near his body, police said.<\/p>\n<p>A native of Oceanside, <strong>Seau<\/strong> starred at the University of Southern California before he was drafted fifth overall in the 1990 NFL draft by the Chargers.<\/p>\n<p>A 12-time pro bowler, <strong>Seau<\/strong> played 13 seasons with the Chargers and was one of the team\u2019s most popular players. In 1994, he led the team to the Super Bowl, where they lost to the San Francisco 49ers. The Pro Football Hall of Fame selected him for the 1990s All-Decade Team.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Seau<\/strong> is survived by three teenage children: a daughter, Sydney, and sons, <strong>Jake<\/strong> and <strong>Hunter<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Seau<\/strong> is the second retired NFL player to commit suicide in the past few weeks.<strong> Ray Easterling<\/strong>, a safety for the Atlanta Falcons in the 1970s and a plaintiff in a high-profile lawsuit against the NFL over its handling of concussion-related injuries, died last month of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.<\/p>\n<p>The circumstances of <strong>Seau\u2019s<\/strong> death instantly raised comparisons to former Chicago Bears star, <strong>Dave Duerson<\/strong>. In February 2011, Duerson shot himself in the chest, saying in a note he wanted his brain donated to the study of football head injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OCEANSIDE, Calif. \u2013 Junior Seau, regarded as one of the NFL\u2019s elite linebackers over a 20-year career with the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins, and New England Patriots, died of a gunshot wound to the chest Wednesday at his home. He was 43. Police said Seau\u2019s death was being investigated as a suicide. He was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}