Ravens safety Ed Reed on health risks: 'I signed up for it'

Ravens safety Ed Reed says he feels the effects of repeated hard hits over his career. (Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed has been fined more than $100,000 by the NFL this season for illegal hits. At age 34, Reed says he is already feeling the effects of concussions and other hits to the head he has sustained over his 11-year career.

Reed also says that former NFL linebacker Junior Seau, who committed suicide last May and reportedly had brain damage from repeated concussions, "signed up for it'' when he came into the NFL. He says he is in the same boat at Seau.

"Sometimes I wake up and I think, where did my memory go? But at the same time, I signed up for it," Reed said, via CBSSports.com. "Football has been like that for a long time, for ages. Football has always been a contact sport, and it's always going to be a violent sport, and there are going to be repercussions from that. But every player that ever played this game and will play this game, they're signing up for it." "Did he sign up for it?'' Reed said. "Yeah, he signed up to play football. Things are going to happen. Do I want it to happen? No. When I was on a golf course, did I want to hear about Junior Seau? No, I didn't want to hear that. I grew up watching him play. That was a sad day. A sad day, and there have been many other guys that have been down that road that you didn't want to hear about because of football."