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As a Super Bowl champion quarterback, Steve Beuerlein diagnosed defenses. Now, at 61, he’s using artificial intelligence to help predict what kind of heart problems might occur.
Beuerlein told Pakinomist Digital in a recent interview that as he’s gotten older, he’s thought more about his mortality.
“As you get a little older, you start to think a little more about your mortality,” Beuerlein told Pakinomist Digital in an interview with Heartflow.
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Steve Beuerlein waves at a Netflix event for “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys” at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles, California on August 11, 2025. (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)
He signed up for Heartflow’s Gamefilm registration as the company uses revolutionary technology to help determine if someone is at risk of cardiovascular disease.
“I looked into it, did my research and realized that what Heartflow had going on as a company and their technology, which was the first of its kind and AI-driven, completely revolutionary type of technology that went into this overall offering to detect early-stage heart disease,” Beuerlein said.
The Pro Bowl quarterback said his father battled cardiovascular disease for 30 years, and with that in mind, he wanted to get checked himself.
“My father kind of fought for it for the last 30 years of his life. And so of course I was curious about how I matched and went through the whole process. It was painless, non-invasive, very effective, a very easy process to go through. And then the detail, when I got through it and came back, all the information that came back was so thorough, and for me it was very positive,” he said.
Beuerlein was not only impressed by how easy it was to be checked, but also how the power of AI technology made the results so understandable.
“It’s amazing how simple the procedure is to go through, and yet with the technology they have, a lot of it again powered by AI, you actually sit down with a doctor after you go through the process and the results come in and you’re literally looking at a computer,” Beuerlein said.
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Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Steve Beuerlein plays against the Carolina Panthers in the 1995 Hall of Fame Game at Fawcett Stadium in Canton, Ohio on July 29, 1995. (Michael C. Hebert/USA TODAY NETWORK)
“You see a 3D image of your heart and they can rotate it around where you can see it from the front, from the back.”
The results give the doctors and the patient the opportunity to see into all the chambers of the heart. There is a color scale that identifies the areas where plaque begins to develop.
The hard plaque is of immediate concern, but the build-up of soft plaque is also a problem.
The tests allow the patient to get a baseline of their current condition and allow people to be proactive with their heart health rather than reactive.
“Fifty percent of first-time heart attacks or significant cardiac episodes happen completely by surprise. People had no way of knowing this was going to happen, that they were having these problems. And that’s what motivated Heartflow to kind of try to solve that and come up with this revolutionary technology,” Beuerlein said.
“Many times this progresses in people and there are no signs, no symptoms. They have no way of knowing they are at risk.”
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Carolina Panthers quarterback Steve Beuerlein throws the ball against the Atlanta Falcons in a 1997 regular season game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia on September 7, 1997. (RVR Photos/USA TODAY Sports)
More information about Heartflow’s technology can be found on its website, in addition to going to any doctor or health center that has a partnership with the company.
Beuerlein played in the NFL for 14 seasons. He played for the then Los Angeles Raiders, Dallas Cowboys, Arizona Cardinals, Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos. He was the backup quarterback when the Cowboys won the Super Bowl in 1992.
He made the Pro Bowl with the Panthers in 1999. In 147 games (102 starts), he completed 56.9% of his passes for 24,046 yards with 147 touchdowns and 112 interceptions.
