Tight end Nick O’Leary thought he was kidding when he told his brother there was “something wrong with my heart” when he felt pain in his left arm while working out earlier this year, but he turned out to be right.
O’Leary wound up going to the hospital and was told he had a heart attack. He had surgery to correct 100 percent blockage of an artery in the right side of his heart last month.
O’Leary signed with the Raiders as a free agent in March, but was placed on the reserve/non-football injury list when his heart issue was discovered last year. While returning to action this year is out, O’Leary hopes to play again in 2021.
“I feel good,” O’Leary said, via Tom D’Angelo of the Palm Beach Post. “I feel better than I did before. I’ve got to be on blood thinners for six months to a year. That’s really the only reason now why I can’t play football. If I [got cut], they said that would be the biggest problem, wouldn’t be able to stop the bleeding.”
O’Leary has 53 career catches over 59 games with the Jaguars, Dolphins and Bills.