In a motel room, I faced a moment of despair, believing a gunshot would silence the turmoil in my life. Little did I know, this act of desperation would open the door to a new set of challenges, as an opportunistic con artist swooped in to exploit my vulnerability and strip me of what I had left.

My name is synonymous with NFL history. A quarterback during the 1990s and early 2000s, I played for teams like the Atlanta Falcons, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and San Diego Chargers. Known as ‘Brass,’ I was part of Detroit’s only playoff victory since 1957 and still hold the Bears’ record for passing yards and touchdowns. Despite these achievements, my life off the field was a constant battle with depression, a fight that spanned more than two decades.

In 2015, that battle seemed insurmountable. The rapid loss of my son to a drug overdose and my mother to cancer plunged me into a depth of despair I thought I couldn’t escape. Convinced that ending my life was the only solution, I isolated myself in a motel, sent farewell messages to a few friends, and succumbed to the darkness with a gun in hand.

The shot I fired was meant to end everything. But instead, it marked the beginning of a new chapter fraught with unforeseen challenges. Surviving a bullet to the brain is rare, and while many meet a tragic end, my story took a different turn.

Bang. The sound that was supposed to signal the end instead heralded a new, painful journey—one where my vulnerability would be exploited, and my resilience tested like never before.

Bang.

Shooting yourself in the head would spell death for most people. But I somehow miraculously survived. I woke from my month-long coma to learn that the bullet which split my tongue and carved a path through my frontal lobe and skull didn’t kill me. But it did take a heavy toll on my mental capacity. I was reduced to a state which would best be compared to that of a six-year-old boy. I became placid and easygoing. And highly suggestable. I could not process complex concepts or decisions, so I mostly did what I was told without question or complaint. Whoever instructed me to do something. I just did it. Whether I knew that person or not.

A neurologist had declared me mentally incapacitated.

Erik Kramer, pictured in 2025, was an NFL quarterback for more than 11 years back in the 1990s and early 2000s

I’m grateful that my career left a fair amount of money in the bank to pay for the years of medical treatment after my suicide attempt. But that money also attracted the attention of a devious criminal — a woman I once dated for a short time and broke up with — when I was in my right mind.

My ex-girlfriend, Cortney.

I hadn’t spoken to her for more than a year. Our relationship was extremely toxic. My friends and family hated her. My mother referred to her as a ‘gold digger.’ She was certainly the last person on earth I ever expected to show up and help me stagger through the early phases of my rehabilitation. But out of the blue she started texting me. Then calling me up on the phone, full of heartfelt concern, always with words of loving solace. Keep in mind, I had the mental capacity of a six-year-old at this point. I didn’t really remember her. Much less dating and breaking up with her. I had zero short term memory too. And Sometimes I’d eat dinner two or even three times because I forgot the first sitting.

Soon, Cortney was coming over to my house. I don’t remember much of what we talked about in those early days but she figured out pretty quickly that I was very, very agreeable. And extremely easy to manipulate.

Not long after that, she fully moved into my home under the guise of taking care of me. And she quit her office job.

Cortney seemed like a godsend at first. All scammers do in the beginning. And I needed all the help I could get at that time. Initially she’d swipe my credit card for grocery runs. I mean, I was declared incapacitated by a neurologist and she knew I was in no state to be checking my accounts, so there was no chance I would notice that she was using the cashback feature to pocket a hundred bucks or more on each trip. I now know that this was her way of testing the waters for something much more insidious she had planned.

The long con.

She invited friends and family over to my house frequently — my ex-wife, my son Dillon, my aunt and uncle — where she made everyone dinner and updated them all about my treatment. She did a better job than I could at explaining things. I was suffering from frequent bouts of confusion and memory loss, so I just nodded along while she topped off my wine glass and kissed me on the head and told me not to lift a finger. Cortney became the very picture of an attentive and loving nurse, and it fully convinced the people closest to me that she had my best interests at heart.

Kramer earned Detroit its only playoff victory since 1957 (Pictured: Playing for the Detroit Lions in 1991)

Crippling depression that Kramer had battled on and off for more than 20 years got the best of him in 2015 and he decided to end his life (Pictured: Playing for the Chicago Bears in 1994)

Nobody would have ever guessed that she was stealing between $300 and $700 a day.

Every. Single. Day.

And it would have continued if it weren’t for my childhood friend, Anna Dergan. I’ve known Anna for more than 40 years: she visited daily at the rehab facility, and was in constant communication with my doctors about my recovery progress. She knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t the type to order a bunch of Amazon packages. Yet there they were, piling up on the doorstep almost every day. Addressed to Cortney and naturally, paid for with my credit cards.

This prompted Anna to check my bank records. That’s when she noticed strange daily ATM withdrawals adding up to thousands of dollars. On top of that, there were excessive credit card transactions and cash advances, forged checks, and sickeningly — Cortney had even drained my deceased son’s memorial account.

But there was no rage in me. Just blank, numb acquiescence. I was in no state to understand that I was getting scammed by a woman who had insinuated herself into my life for the sole purpose of robbing me blind. Nor was I in any position to do anything about it. I thank God every day that Anna took the reins, reporting the theft to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, who immediately dispatched a detective to investigate.

He interviewed me while I was receiving treatment at a brain rehabilitation center. It must have been a frustrating task. He kept trying his best to explain the situation, but I just couldn’t connect the dots. I could not understand what the detective was saying. He wrote in his report that he felt I was mentally incapacitated and unable to handle my own financial affairs. He then served search warrants on various financial institutions of mine, discovering again and again that someone was leeching my accounts. I did nothing. I was busy with therapy and with trying to piece my life back together. I just couldn’t understand why this guy was so concerned.

When I told Cortney about the detective and the missing money, it was a puzzle to me, all of it, but so was simple subtraction or ordering off a menu. Surely, I thought, my doting caregiver could help me get to the bottom of this.

She told me she took the money and used it for groceries. And then she told me to call the detective immediately and tell him to end the investigation because there was no crime here.

So I called the station and told the detective not to investigate Cortney. I did what I was told. I was a passenger in my own life, and she was the one behind the wheel.

After Kramer’s suicide attempt, his ex-girlfriend Cortney Baird suddenly came back into his life and began stealing money from him (Pictured: The couple when they were dating in 2014)

Kramer tells his story on the podcast ‘The Quarterback and the Con Artist’ which includes interviews with his son, the police, and the doctor who treated him after his suicide attempt

As the weeks passed she started isolating me from my friends and family, and began to take over my entire identity. She exploited my mental state to start collecting my passwords and login information and monitor my emails to stay one step ahead of all my activities. Through this, she discovered that I had an upcoming meeting with a conservatorship attorney — that my family and friends had arranged to thwart Cortney’s theft.

But then, in a checkmate move, Cortney decided to marry me in a top secret wedding ceremony that took place behind the backs of those same family members and friends.

This part of the plan worked beautifully for her. The LA District Attorney’s Office refused to file charges against Cortney, claiming that our marriage muddied the waters. A wife can’t steal from her husband right? What’s his is hers and what’s hers is his.

It was now 2017. I had been with Cortney for only eight months and I was still in recovery but she had already scammed me out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by this point. All hope rested with the Probate Court. The detective from my case teamed up with my aunt and my sister to provide a staggering mountain of evidence: a full chronicle of Cortney’s theft. Receipts. Transcripts. Text message logs. Doctors’ reports of my incapacitation.

But by this point I was under a conservatorship. And the court appointed attorney handling my conservatorship seemed to be taking my now ‘wife’ Cortney’s side at every turn. He argued that I was ‘as competent as anyone else in the courtroom.’ He scoffed at my family’s evidence and told the judge that our marriage was legal and valid. And the judge ruled in Cortney’s favor and against my family’s wishes, and I remained married to Cortney, losing $10,000 to 15,000 a month as she funded her lavish lifestyle. But honestly, I have no memory of any of this. I just did what I was told by Cortney. No questions asked.

It would take another year before my mental fog began to dissipate. In June of 2018, I was struck by a flash of lucidity. It felt like I had been in a coma the whole time and I was suddenly coming to. I realized I didn’t love Cortney. And I never wanted to marry her in the first place. I didn’t knowingly consent to that at all. And I suddenly realized she was stealing from me. 

So I told her we were getting divorced, and insisted she move out of my house, as soon as possible. That really seemed to shake her up. I expected her to high-tail it out of there before I pried further and learned the true extent of her crimes. So she went to her room to pack.

Or so I thought.

Cortney Baird leaving court after pleading guilty and getting sentenced on August 29, 2024

In June 2018, Kramer was suddenly hit by a flash of lucidity where he realized he did not love Cortney and that she had been stealing from him

But instead she called 911 and accused me of assaulting her. I was arrested and charged with domestic battery and the media sensationalized it instantly.

But I am a fighter. And when I get knocked down, I don’t stay down. With my newfound mental faculties and my drive for justice, I persevered in court, and got her fraudulent marriage annulled by the courts and the domestic violence case against me — that Cortney fabricated out of whole cloth — dropped.

And after a year-and-a-half long battle proving my case to the DA’s office — Cortney was eventually arrested in February 2020 and charged with 12 felony counts that included dependent adult abuse, grand theft, forgery and identity theft. 

She eventually pleaded guilty in 2024, only after dozens of court appearances and changing attorneys five times. Her intention was to drag it out as long as possible and exhaust me, but it didn’t work.

She was only sentenced to six months in jail because she magically came up with $170,000 cash to pay me restitution. So the judge ended up going easy on her.

I wonder where she got that $170,000 from? The court didn’t seem to care.

Besides, it was just a drop on the bucket. I mean, between my attorney fees, the annulment costs, and the legal fight to clear my name from her false domestic violence accusation, my years with Cortney ended up costing me more than $700,000. 

Despite all of this, I know that I am an extremely lucky man. The survival of a self-inflicted gunshot makes up only a single percent of all failed suicide attempts, and I know that my recovery — both mental and physical — has been extraordinary by any definition. 

And for the past year I’ve been working on producing a new podcast series called ‘The Quarterback and the Con Artist’ to unwind exactly what happened to me. And how it happened to me by interviewing all the people who were involved and who fought like hell to wrest me from the clutches of a conniving con artist. 

Cortney Baird is not an anomaly by any stretch. Con artists are in fact everywhere. And nine times out of 10, they’re usually someone you know. Or God forbid, someone you love.