ARLINGTON, Texas — Maurkice Pouncey still expects to play in the Super Bowl.
“Most definitely,” the Steelers’ injured center said Tuesday. “I feel positive right now.”
Pouncey is dealing with a high left ankle sprain, suffered in Pittsburgh’s 24-19 victory over the Jets in the AFC championship game. He was off crutches at media day after needing them to walk down the steps from the team’s charter flight into the Dallas area Monday, but still has a bulky walking boot on his left foot.
“I’m walking around pretty good today,” the rookie Pro Bowl selection said. “I couldn’t do anything in the cast. Now that I’m in the walking boot, there’s a lot that I can do now.”
Pouncey did not practice last week, and coach Mike Tomlin has said Pouncey is “not on a running clock” until today — the team’s first practice before the Super Bowl.
“He’s going to give me pretty much all the way until the last day,” Pouncey said. “You’ll pretty much know toward the end of the week if I’m going to play or not.”
Some teammates have been talking as though backup Doug Legursky will start against the Packers.
“Who said that? Tell me where they’re at,” Pouncey said with a laugh. “Guys don’t really know, man. They have their little assumptions, but I’m hopeful I’ll be ready to go.”
A hair-raising player.
Troy Polamalu was a few minutes late as he strolled toward his podium at Super Bowl media day when teammate Ryan Clark spotted him.
Polamalu’s hair was in a ponytail, covered by the hood on his Steelers sweat shirt.
“They want to see your hair,” Clark shouted at him. “Head & Shoulders is gonna be mad, Troy!”
Polamalu chuckled before sitting in front of a throng of reporters and finally flipping the hood off his head.
“It takes me about 45 minutes to get ready every day,” he said before breaking into an impromptu infomercial for a shampoo he endorses.
Sainz “shares” spotlight.
The Mexican television reporter who said she felt uncomfortable in the Jets’ locker room drew a lot of attention.
Ines Sainz of TV Azteca conducted interviews wearing a slinky silver dress and shiny black heels, standing out among the more conventionally dressed media.
Actually, Sainz appeared to spend more time being interviewed by other reporters than she did talking to players.
“It’s the greatest day,” she said, “and all of us can share it together.”
Win-win ruling?
While there has been little progress in the labor talks, a ruling came in the players’ union’s complaint that the league improperly negotiated TV contracts — and both sides claimed victory.
Special master Stephen Burbank rejected the union’s request that $4 billion in 2011 TV payments to the league be put in escrow in the event of a lockout. But he also awarded the union almost $7 million in damages from the league because of violations in “the NFL’s negotiation of lockout insurance in its contracts with ESPN and NBC.”
The Associated Press
