Silver: Remembering Jim Irsay, a sweet, generous soul and steely steward of the sport

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The black luxury bus pulled up to the front entrance of the Four Seasons Hotel Austin at twilight, and when Jim Irsay disembarked — cane in hand, flustered expression on his weathered face — something seemed a little off. He lurched forward, gave me a warm greeting and said he’d see me in a bit; he and his all-star band of decorated rock ‘n’ rollers would spend this cool night in December 2021 at the famed Moody Theater, rehearsing for a gala the following evening, and I’d been invited into the inner circle.

Still, it had almost seemed like Irsay was startled by my presence. Later, from one of his confidantes, I learned what was up: The Indianapolis Colts owner’s legs had stiffened during the drive, and at that moment, walking had been a struggle. “He shouldn’t have seen me like that,” a peeved Irsay told the confidante.

It seemed strange that Irsay cared that much about his vulnerability and how I might perceive it. We’d known each other for more than two decades, forging a relationship based on common football experiences and fortified by a shared love of music, counterculture and unrelenting principles and originality. He was a man I covered as a journalist, sometimes in less than flattering contexts, but our conversations invariably veered into the personal space. We told what we believed were unvarnished truths and seldom held back, trusting that good intentions and mutual aversion to inauthenticity would make it all OK.

Irsay, who died Wednesday morning at the age of 65, was older and obviously wealthier but treated me like a contemporary. I appreciated that, a lot, and I also understood where it came from. In a world of amplified noise, instant takes and a whole lot of groupthink, the man had grown accustomed to having his essence misunderstood.

To many, Irsay was a caricature, defined by his audacious social media posts, raspy voice and documented struggles with addiction. To those who knew him well, he was not only a sweet, generous soul but also a steely steward of the sport. He understood football’s essence and rhythms far better than commonly believed, and his standard of organizational success was exacting and ambitious.

There was no one like him in pro football, and his absence will leave an abyss that makes the pit they dug up to build Lucas Oil Stadium look like a pothole.

I started covering the NFL in 1989 during Pete Rozelle’s waning months as the NFL commissioner, five years after Irsay, at 24, had become the Colts’ general manager. By the mid-1990s, I was one of Sports Illustrated’s lead football writers, regularly interacting with icons. I walked to Three Rivers Stadium with Dan Rooney, got banned from the Raiders’ locker room by Al Davis and did a profile on Don Shula as people called for the living legend’s firing by the Miami Dolphins.

“Guys like you and me grew up together,” Irsay told me a few years ago. “There aren’t that many of us left who remember how it was. I’ve been going to (owners’ meetings) for half a century, and as you know, there’s almost no one left in the room anymore. You and I, we know what came before and how we got here, and we take it very seriously.”

Eventually I will gather myself and write something. I will miss this gentle soul. pic.twitter.com/iI0wFQTmbu

— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) May 21, 2025

To be totally raw and honest — two qualities that defined Irsay — I’m taking this hard, and I’m having trouble typing these words. He was a real one, and his spirit enhanced my reality, intangibly and tangibly. Thanks to Irsay, I’ve partied with rock icons, gently strummed Jerry Garcia’s iconic guitar (“Tiger,” part of the world’s coolest memorabilia collection) and gained incredible insight into the challenges of presiding over an NFL franchise.

His poignant description of the way the stars aligned to bring Peyton Manning to Indianapolis remains indelible in my memory. Similarly, I’ll always cherish the purity of the conversation we had at the 1933 Lounge in downtown Indy in February 2012, when Irsay — on the verge of cutting Manning and drafting Andrew Luck — told me, “I’m taking back my team” and explained the circumstances that provoked such a proclamation.

He didn’t ask much from me, other than the expectation that there’d be a lack of pretense or phoniness. That’s how he rolled, without exception. In his words: “One thing with me is I kind of feel like I don’t have sides, so to speak. I am authentically who I am, all the time. There aren’t a lot of sides to me. I try to be very passionate, the way I live, and intuitive.”

Irsay may have inherited a football team, but he didn’t have it easy. He overcame a lot in life, beginning with the fact that his father, Bob, was an alcoholic known for a nasty disposition. The elder Irsay ripped the Colts out of Baltimore in the middle of the night, a crushing blow to a loyal fan base. Long before that, his son worked hard to be a servant leader, combatting a silver-spoon stigma by working as a ballboy, among other unglamorous jobs.

“I’ll bet you there’s no owner that knows more about football than Jim,” said Irsay’s close friend Mike Wanchic, John Mellencamp’s longtime guitarist and collaborator. “Who has more experience than Jim Irsay? Who washed jockstraps and polished footballs and was the s—kicker on that team as a boy? He came up in the family business.”

As he took on those responsibilities, Irsay watched his father run the franchise like a salty tyrant and learned some valuable lessons.

In the words of Colts chief operating officer Pete Ward, who began working for the franchise in 1981: “I’ve always said that Jim did a lot of observing when he was younger, and he learned how to run a team by not doing what his dad did. So, Jim had that advantage. And he was smart enough to drink it all in and assimilate it because his style is 180 degrees different from how his father did things, and it shows.”

Irsay acknowledged as much, telling me: “No question — we teach by doing it the right way or not doing it the right way. My dad was so brilliant in his younger days, one of the greatest, youngest, most brilliant businessmen. But when the madness started to come and the liquor came upon him and we went through that era … it was something where, well, he didn’t get to grow up in the business like I did.”

Robert Irsay had a debilitating stroke in 1995 and died 14 months later, leaving Jim in charge of the business. He hired strong leaders and let them lead, but he was also assertive at pivotal times. It was Irsay who ultimately implored future Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian to pick Manning over the other highly regarded quarterback at the top of the 1998 NFL Draft, Ryan Leaf — a slightly significant decision. And it was Irsay who made the call to hire Tony Dungy after Jim Mora’s dismissal in January 2002, setting the stage for a prolonged run of excellence that included a Super Bowl triumph five years later.

Irsay cared about much more than football. His affinity for rock icons like John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Kurt Cobain wasn’t merely about the music; their lyrical brilliance, personal struggles and impact on society resonated deeply, too. Irsay was exceptionally proud of the “Kicking the Stigma” campaign he launched in 2020, an effort to bring mental-health struggles out into the open and combat the growing crisis in Indiana and beyond. Around that time — in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Lennon’s murder — my daughter and I did a podcast interview with Irsay that reflected on the magnitude of the tragedy and its impact on him.

Rest in Peace, and rock on forever 💔 pic.twitter.com/phvcgvXj6d

— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) May 21, 2025

Later, Irsay shared a text message from his ex-wife, Meg Coyle, with whom he was still friendly. In it, she recalled the moment he learned of Lennon’s death, via Howard Cosell on “Monday Night Football”: “You were downstairs watching the game. I was on the phone with my mom, I think, and I heard you cry out like a wounded animal. I felt such a panic, as I had never heard a sound like that in my life. The depth of the grief in that wail/howl is hard to describe unless you have heard that kind of thing before. You were dropped to the floor, howling and writhing.”

We all grieve differently, and my phone is full of text messages from people devastated by Irsay’s death: rock stars, Hall of Famers and just plain, regular folks like me. In those texts, there have been many remembrances of his generosity of spirit, and not just of the monetary variety. He was a sensitive man who, for all the demons he battled, possessed an intuitive and guileless gift for caretaking — often when it was needed most.

When I think back to that trip to Austin in December 2021, I remember the pretext. After eight years at NFL Network, where Irsay was technically one of my bosses, I’d been let go abruptly, told my contract would not be renewed. As I tried to piece things together and figure out my next moves, Irsay reached out to see if I wanted to write something about the event, one of many around the country designed to showcase his memorabilia collection. It would also mean I got to see him sing tunes like Bob Seger’s “Fire Down Below” with a killer band behind him, share drinks with R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills and basically hang out with unfettered access.

Irsay ended up loving the story I penned, but looking back, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the reason he summoned me to the Lone Star State. For all the trouble he had walking as he disembarked the luxury bus in front of the Four Seasons, Irsay, in fact, was helping me get back on my feet.

In a subsequent text exchange, Irsay sent me a poem he’d written called “Birth.” I wish I could say it was an uplifting glimpse into a blissful existence, but — as he would want it — I’m going to keep it real. His words were beautiful and dark and captured life’s frailty and fleeting nature, and the poem ended with a bang.

And yet, the poem’s haunting finale carried a shred of hope.

“I see myself in my casket,” Irsay wrote. “The bugler blowing his horn. I thought I saw salvation, so I started to mourn. Now the blur of my things are forgotten. I’m just being born.”

(Photo: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

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