National Football League

'Chip on his shoulder' epidemic reaches new heights in American sports

Published Sep. 23, 2014 4:00 p.m. ET

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Brett Smiley

They’re models of fitness and perseverance, but top-tier collegiate and professional athletes are still susceptible to suffering the most contagious modern-day disease in sports.

On Sunday in Philadelphia, speedy Washington receiver DeSean Jackson returned to Lincoln Financial Field to face his former team in an NFC East showdown . . . with a chip on his shoulder.

After a 81-yard touchdown catch from quarterback Kirk Cousins, Jackson seized the opportunity to taunt the team that cut him two years after signing him to a lucrative five-year deal.

Jackson's Rockettes-style celebration kicks in the end zone made it clear that he was not looking to get chummy.

Jackson is but one of thousands of athletes across the sports world with a chip on his shoulder — a ubiquitous and frequently diagnosed, but little-understood condition.

“Chip on his shoulder” disease (COHS) refers to an emotional disorder afflicting athletes with the feeling that he or she has been overlooked, underestimated, slighted, marginalized, unduly criticized or even underappreciated.

Doctors and researchers do not know whether environmental or genetic factors — both established causes of COHS — have triggered the recent outbreak of chips.

While thousands of athletes indeed suffer from COHS, writers, reporters and analysts misdiagnose thousands more during the course of their work.

COHS causes an array of symptoms. Each athlete experiences and displays the affliction differently. Some symptoms result in improved play. Other players with a chip may spin into a warped sense of reality and perceive slights where they do not exist, allowing the chip to drag down their performance.

Common symptoms include:

Most commonly, the COHS sufferer holds a grudge against the perpetrator(s) who caused the chip, although many athletes report simply being born with a chip on their shoulder.

The most common causes:

•  Falling in the draft beyond where player thinks a team should have selected him. An estimated 73 percent of COHS cases in the NBA occur when players get drafted lower — even a couple picks lower — than they believe or their agents advise a team will draft them.

• Getting released by a team. Particularly when the player anticipated a lucrative contract (re-negotiated or otherwise) from the team that originally drafted him.

•  Getting traded.

•  Criticisms about consistency.

•  Speculation that the player can no longer perform at a high level.

•  Being undersized. "He plays with that chip on his shoulder . . . in practice, in games," UCLA head football coach Jim Mora said of 5-foot-8 cornerback Ishmael Adams. "He's a fighter, a scrapper."

•  Getting overlooked during recruiting, or during a draft, often the result of playing at a smaller school.

•  Losing or failing to win a starting job, getting benched or demoted, falling into a back-up role.

• Not getting selected for an All-Star game.

Leading scientists believe that certain athletes are genetically predisposed to developing a chip. Some athletes believe they are just born that way. 

Some coaches actually encourage player to develop a chip on his shoulder. It follows that a person may actually have the mental faciility to cultivate a chip until it manifests in a full-blown shoulder chip.

The size and impact of the chip may vary, sometimes causing adverse consequences. Dangerous chip growth may pose a problem for the athlete and/or his opponents, depending on how a chip's enlargement impacts his mental composition. But doctors have yet to determine what causes abnormally large rock-sized chips.

Shoulder chips may come and go, only manifesting during certain games or competitions when facing an opponent that causes or contributed to the chip.

“I’ve seen a little article today where [Bill Belichick], I think he said he didn’t want me,” Vikings receiver and returner Cordarrelle Patterson told the Pioneer Press about the Patriots passing on him in the 2013 NFL Draft. “So that’s the kind of things that stick in the back of a player’s head. And you get out there, you just want to beat the defense up since people say things like that.”

Introspection usually works. If a player perceives a chip, it’s probably there.

Writers and analysts will let athletes and readers know if they believe a player has a chip.

Unfortunately, there is no vaccine or cure for COHS.

Keys to recovery are positive reinforcement and acceptance. Early detection can often give sufferers time to adapt and overcome.

Faux-chips misattributed to players can often be rooted out by asking the athlete if he has a chip on his shoulder, and listening to what he says.

Also, just being oneself has worked for some players.

For athletes: not being so sensitive.

For writers, reporters and analysts: coming up with different words to describe the state of feeling slighted.

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