We speculated that the Pittsburgh Steelers might be in some hot water with the league office in light of Le’Veon Bell’s admission that he dealt with a groin injury “for weeks” before it caused him to miss most of the AFC Championship Game. However, given the fact that nobody from the Steelers other than Bell had said they were aware of his injury, it seemed far-fetched that any punishment could be handed down.
That’s no longer the case.
Speaking with the local media Tuesday, head coach Mike Tomlin revealed that he did, in fact, know about Bell’s groin injury. However, he didn’t feel it necessary to list Bell on the injury report because he didn’t miss practice or games.
“It was just something to manage,” Tomlin elaborated, per Jeremy Bergman of NFL.com. “I think when you look at the journey that is the season, I think that just about every guy down there is dealing with and managing something in an effort to stay on the grass. So I was aware of it, but it wasn’t significant to the point where it affected planning or the anticipation of planning in anyway.”
This explanation doesn’t quite cut the mustard.
Bell did miss some practices leading up to the Wild Card and Divisional Round games for the Steelers, though the absences were deemed to have nothing to do with an injury. Even if that is true, this injury should have been reported.
Pete Carroll knew about Richard Sherman’s knee injury yet didn’t disclose it until after the Seattle Seahawks were ousted by the Atlanta Falcons in the Divisional Round. Because he failed to disclose Sherman’s knee injury, the Seahawks could lose a draft pick (more on that here).
Bell’s injury absolutely should have been disclosed, and he should have been on the injury report. It’s going to be interesting to see if the NFL chooses to investigate Tomlin’s decision here.