[dirk digler]

Oh and BTW Big Ben played with broken ribs in the SB.

ROETHLISBERGER PLAYED WITH BROKEN RIBS

Posted by Mike Florio on February 9, 2009, 10:22 a.m.

Some in the media (including John Clayton of ESPN) openly scoffed at our Super Bowl-week report that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger secretly underwent an X-ray on his ribs/back.

The X-ray was related to an injury that Roethlisberger sustained during the AFC title game.

Roethlisberger initially wouldn’t comment on the situation, and coach Mike Tomlin responded to questions from AFC pool reporter Peter King about the matter with a vague “not that I heard.”

Apparently, Tomlin needs to get better sources within his team. Because, according to King’s latest MMQB column, Roethlisberger indeed had an X-ray on his ribs. (Big Ben admitted to NBC’s Andrea Kremer that he’d had an X-ray “somewhere.”)

King also reports that, as it turns out, two of the ribs were broken, as revealed not by the X-ray but by an MRI performed after the Super Bowl.

“Fractured ribs,” Roethlisberger told King. “Luckily, in the game, I didn’t take any big hits to make ‘em hurt. But I knew all along there was something wrong. There wouldn’t have been anything they could have done about fractured ribs anyway. It was just suck it up and play.”