NFL owner secretly relapsed, got ketamine from private doctor before death

In the final years of his life, Jim Irsay, the owner and chief executive of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts, spoke proudly about how he confronted his lifelong substance abuse battle with honesty and transparency, even launching a charity to promote openness around mental illness and addiction. He called it Kicking the Stigma.

But behind the scenes, Irsay, who died in May at 65, spent the last two years of his life in the throes of a relapse that he and Colts executives repeatedly hid from the public, a Washington Post investigation found.

This relapse, and his death, came as he was under the care of a “luxury” recovery doctor prescribing Irsay opioids — and, eventually, ketamine — at amounts that worried people close to him, The Post found. This doctor signed Irsay’s death certificate, stating the cause was cardiac arrest, and no autopsy or toxicology testing was performed.

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