Raiders tight end reveals recent heart attack

When the Raiders put recently signed Nick O’Leary on the reserve/non-football injury list last month, general wisdom was that the journeyman tight end had simply tired of football and was calling it quits.

But it turns out to have been far more serious than that.

O’Leary, the grandson of golfing great Jack Nicklaus, revealed to the Palm Beach Post that he underwent two surgical procedures to clear 100 percent blockage to his heart last month after twice experiencing a sharp pain in his left arm and up toward his chest.

The second occurrence happened after O’Leary played pickup basketball with his brother. He told the Palm Beach Post he joked with his brother that “there’s something wrong with my heart,” but the incident convinced him to go to the hospital.

Upon getting checked out, doctors delivered a shocking revelation.

“They told me it was a heart attack,” O’Leary said.

Fortunately, doctors detected the issue early enough to do something about it. O’Leary spent three nights in the hospital and underwent two procedures in which two stents were placed into the blocked passageway.

“For it to happen to me, I was in shock. I didn’t think that’s what it would be. For that to happen and me ending up being in the hospital for three days and having a heart issue is pretty weird.”

Nearly a month later, O’Leary is doing well and has even begun playing golf and biking.

“I feel good,” O’Leary said. “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, (they) wouldn’t be able to stop the bleeding.”

The 27-year-old O’Leary, a Florida State product who has 53 catches for 668 yards over six NFL seasons, says that he would still like to resume his NFL career in 2021.

Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore onTwitter.