Bell mulling surgery for injured groin
HOUSTON — Le’Veon Bell set a Steelers postseason rushing record twice within eight days in January while playing with an injured groin that may now need surgery.
If so, it would be the second consecutive time he will have had surgery after his season ended with an injury, and the NFL is investigating why coach Mike Tomlin did not put him on the team’s official injury list before those games.
Bell, making the rounds of Super Bowl media interviews while representing FedEx on Wednesday, told the Post-Gazette that one doctor advised him to have surgery and a second told him his injured groin would heal with rest.
“I’m going to see a third,” Bell said, and surgery is “definitely” possible.
Bell said his groin was hurt when he was tackled during the Steelers playoff victory against Miami at Heinz Field on Jan. 8, when he set the Steelers postseason rushing record with 167 yards. He broke that the following week with 170 yards against Kansas City.
FALCONS FAN: Michael Vick never led the Atlanta Falcons to the Super Bowl. His career with the team ended in disgrace.
Yet no one is rooting harder for the Falcons to win their first championship.
“A lot of people are surprised when they find out how passionately I’ve been rooting for the Falcons this season,” Vick wrote in a more than 4,300-word letter posted Wednesday on The Players’ Tribune website. “They assume that there is some sort of tension between us, some level of bitterness. And even when I tell people that it isn’t the case … I have a feeling they may not exactly believe me.”
After six years with the Falcons, a stint that included two playoff appearances and one trip to the NFC championship game, Vick was sent to prison in 2007 for running a dogfighting operation. While serving his time, the Falcons drafted Matt Ryan, handed him the starting quarterback job and cut all ties with Vick.
“I wanted to lead the Falcons to the Super Bowl,” he wrote. “In my mind, even from a prison cell, there was at least one thing I hadn’t lost: I was still the Atlanta Falcons quarterback.”
Vick later played five years for the Philadelphia Eagles and had backup stints with the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers. He did not play this past season and will reportedly hold a retirement bash the night before the Super Bowl in Houston.
CHEER SUIT: In Los Angeles, a former San Francisco 49ers cheerleader filed a federal lawsuit alleging NFL executives and team owners conspired to suppress wages for cheerleaders.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday by the woman identified only as “Jane Doe” names the league and each football team and seeks class-action status for all NFL cheerleaders, described in court papers as “female athletes.”
The NFL and its owners conspired “with the purpose of reducing market competition among female athletes and thus ensuring female athlete earnings remained far below fair market value,” the suit alleges.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Wednesday the NFL hadn’t seen the suit and would have no comment.
The suit estimates damages between $100 million and $300 million and demands cheerleaders be paid commensurate with their contributions as “brand ambassadors” for teams.
Cheerleaders received only a flat, per-game fee and weren’t paid for rehearsal time or community outreach events, according to the filing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco just days ahead of the Super Bowl.
In addition, cheerleaders were forbidden from being recruited by other teams and prohibited from being employed by “other professional cheerleading teams, not just within the NFL,” the suit said.
“Jane Doe” was a cheerleader for the 49ers’ “Gold Rush Girls” from July 2013 until February 2014.
TAGLIABUE: Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is apologizing for remarks he made decades ago about concussions in football.
In an interview with the Talk of Fame Network that airs nationwide Wednesday night, Tagliabue admitted he erred in 1994 in saying concussions were “one of those pack-journalism issues.” He also claimed the number of concussions “is relatively small; the problem is the journalist issue.”
BECKHAM: Odell Beckham Jr. was on his best behavior at the Pro Bowl in Orlando last week, and earned himself a gold star from the league in the form of a letter from NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent.
Vincent wrote to the Giants to laud Beckham’s professionalism and enthusiasm during the event, calling him a “stellar ambassador for our sport to fans, coaches and fellow players” who went “above and beyond” in his interactions and engagement with those groups.