Getty Image
Colts owner Jim Irsay has been incredibly candid about his struggles with substance abuse, but he’s denied an overdose was at the center of an incident that led to him being hospitalized last year despite a police report that asserts that was the case.
As is the case with far too many people, Jim Irsay can trace his addiction issues back to the medicine he was prescribed to deal with the chronic pain. He was a walk-on linebacker at SMU before his career was ended by an ankle injury, and he underwent a series of surgeries that eventually led to him attracting the attention of Indianapolis police who found his name on the list of patients at a “pill mill” in the mid-1990s.
That revelation came to light a couple of years before he took control of the Indianapolis Colts in the wake of the death of his father, and while the franchise largely thrived under its new owner, he bounced in and out of rehab and reportedly overdosed multiple times due to the cocktail of prescription painkillers he frequently turned to.
Irsay—who says he’s gone to rehab on 15 separate occasions—has successfully abstained from alcohol since 2002 but landed in hot water thanks to his other habit as recently as 2014 thanks to a DUI arrest he strangely asserted was linked to his status as a “white billionaire.”
It appeared that issue reared its ugly head again back in December, as a police report that surfaced at the start of 2024 said Irsay was found “unresponsive, cold to the touch and gasping for air” at his home before first responders administered a dose of Narcan prior to being rushed to the hospital.
The report stated Irsay had suffered an overdose (although it was unable to determine which substance had caused it), but during a recent interview with Fox59, the Colts owner disputed the narrative, saying:
“It wasn’t an overdose. I don’t know why when you have your name in the paper in the past, people throw that out there quickly. I don’t pay attention to it all that much, but I don’t think it’s fair.’’
He asserted the incident actually stemmed from a hematoma related to a leg injury he was nursing that ultimately led to a surgery he continues to recover from and will prevent him from physically being in the “war room” when the Colts participate in the 2024 NFL Draft.