Jim Irsay Compares Playing Football To Taking Aspirin, Proves He's An Idiot

Jim Irsay is the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, and on numerous occasions he has done or said some really stupid things. What he recently told SportsBusiness Journal about the risks of playing in the NFL has immediately jumped near the top of the heap.

While talking to SBJ at the annual NFL owners’ meetings, he compared the danger of playing football to that of taking an aspirin.

"I believe this: that the game has always been a risk, you know, and the way certain people are. Look at it. You take an aspirin, I take an aspirin, it might give you extreme side effects of illness and your body…may reject it, where I would be fine. So there is so much we don’t know."

So taking something that has been tested over and over again and formulated specifically to reduce the impact and occurrence of side effects is akin to hurling your body into a sport that has proven to be wildly dangerous in the short and long term. OK Jimmy, you keep believing that.

Irsay is obviously completely ignoring the dozens of studies that have tied playing football with many long-term health problems. His statement is moronic, one of the dumbest things he’s ever said or done. In fact, it’s probably right up there with carrying a briefcase full of cash and a ton of illegally possessed prescription drugs in his car.

Oh but he didn’t stop there:

"To try to tie football, like I said, to suicides or murders or what have you, I believe that is just so absurd as well and it is harmful to other diseases, harmful to things like…when you get into the use of steroids, when you get into substance abuse, you get into the illness of alcohol and addiction. It’s a shame that gets missed, because there (are) very deadly diseases there, for instance, like alcoholism and addiction. That gets pushed to the side and (a person) says, “Oh, no. Football.” To me, that’s really absurd."

Irsay has battled his own addiction problems in a very public manner, so I appreciate that he is pointing out the need to not marginalize those issues. But to act like football didn’t contribute to the suicides of former players suffering through debilitating mental and physical pain dishonors their memories.

I get that Irsay makes his money off the NFL and wants to protect the league at all costs. That makes him no different than any other owner. But the statements coming from the league and owners about the long-term health of players have come across as so callous it’s unbelievable. Either don’t say anything or get on board with what we all already know: football is an incredibly dangerous sport and we need to do all we can protect the athletes who play it.