Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger(notes) took a nasty blow to the helmet from an errant knee during overtime of Sunday's loss to the Kansas City Chiefs 27-24.

Some say he had a concussion, but a team source is saying its tests are showing that it wasn't a concussion, just a good old-fashioned bell-ringing. Either way, it appears that Roethlisberger will be back next weekend for the Steelers game against the Baltimore Ravens, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Backup Charlie Batch(notes) is likely done for the season, though, after he supposedly broke his wrist on the one offensive series in which he replaced Roethlisberger.

It appears that the Steelers will sign Tyler Palko(notes), who quarterbacked for Pitt, to the practice squad and just go with two quarterbacks on the roster; third-stringer Dennis Dixon(notes) will move up to the backup role.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Buffalo Bills owner Bills owner Ralph C. Wilson Jr. is going against his own tradition, it seems. A guy who has always not paid a lot of dough for coaching appears to be going high-end this time around. Wilson is supposedly ready to fork over $10 million a season for the right coach, according to the Buffalo News.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher was apparently contacted by the Bills to see if he had any interest in taking over the team.

He reportedly told the team that he's didn't want to interview for the gig "at this time."

Cowher is supposedly happy to wait till season's end to see what other jobs come available. It's not likely that the Bills will wait till the end of the season to hire a new coach. The team supposedly wants someone to be signed on before then. The team is supposedly meeting with former Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Shanahan sometime in the next seven days.

Source: Buffalo News

The word on the street is that the San Francisco 49ers will drop the tampering charges it filed against the New York Jets over rookie wide receiver Michael Crabtree(notes), according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The 49ers were negotiating with first-round pick/contract holdout Crabtree in September and former player Deion Sanders disrupted the ship when he said publicly that the Jets (and another unnamed team) would pay Crabtree the sum he was desiring. The 49ers filed a complaint pretty quickly after that.

Jets coach Rex Ryan denied the charges at the time and the world will never know exactly what went down since the 49ers are apparently set to drop the charges. Guess they finally are feeling confident in the six-year deal the team signed with Crabtree, who has had 22 catches for 292 yards since early October.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got pretty hammered the other day by the New Orleans Saints 38-7. The next day, the Bucs apparently demoted defensive coordinator Jim Bates, according to the Tampa Tribune.

Head coach Raheem Morris will apparently start calling the defensive plays during the game. Earlier this year - just 10 days before the season got started -- Tampa Bay sent offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski packing and named quarterbacks coach Greg Olson to call plays.

Both of these demoted or fired guys were just hired this past off-season by general manager Mark Dominik, who is in his first year on the job.

Source: Tampa Tribune

You gotta think Denver Broncos Josh McDaniels was second-guessing himself after his team got trashed 32-3 by the San Diego Chargers yesterday, particularly for one incident that supposedly occurred before the game even got started, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

When McDaniels was walking past the Chargers' linebackers before the game, he supposedly said, "We own you." And that didn't sit very well with the folks in San Diego, as you can imagine.

Outside linebacker Shaun Phillips(notes) told the paper, "I'm not surprised. He's a little cocky (rear end)... To say he owns us? I mean, you beat us one time. What has he really done in this league? He had a team 6-0 and now he's looking up at us from second place."

After the game, McDaniels had the response of a six-year-old when asked about the incident: "(They) talked to me first."

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune

Ben Roethlisberger(notes) had his bell rung pretty loudly on Sunday when he suffered a concussion during the Pittsburgh Steelers' overtime loss against the Kansas City Chiefs.

The hit came from Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson who kneed him in the helmet but it's looking like Roethlisberger is recovering pretty well. According to ProFootballTalk, the quarterback was allowed to fly home with the team, remembers everything, and doesn't have any nauseau.

The Steelers take on a division rival, the Baltimore Ravens, next week and it's believed that Roethlisberger is likely to be back for the matchup.

He'll get medical tests today that will determine the true likelihood of that happening, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

Source: ProFootballTalkPittsburgh Tribune Review

After careers of getting knocked around, NFL players are suddenly discovering that this kind of behavior doesn't do wonders for the long-term health of their brains and a lot of reports and studies are backing them up on this.

But Dr. Ira Casson, who is the co-chairman of the league's committee on concussions, is ready to contest anything or anyone that suggests that concussions and the brain trauma that occurs during the natural progression of a professional football game have anything to do with former players having brain-related problems.

So the NFL Players Association is supposedly trying to get Casson ousted from the committee, according to the New York Times. "Our view is that he's a polarizing figure on this issue, and the players certainly don't feel like he can be an impartial party on this subject," George Atallah, the union's assistant executive director for external affairs, told the paper.

Source: New York Times

The Minnesota Vikings want a new stadium. And the team wants one that will likely cost $900 million-plus. In case you haven't noticed, money is tight for everybody these days and the folks in Minnesota aren't excited about the idea of shelling out all that dough for a football stadium. The Vikings' current 30-year lease runs out at the end of 2011 and the team is making it pretty clear it's not planning on playing one more game than necessary in the Metrodome.

So the Vikings are apparently starting to use the threat of moving the team to Los Angeles a little more often these days, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and one wonders if there is a growing truth to the threat.

L.A. has been without a team since 1995 when the Rams and Raiders left town and a new stadium is apparently going to go up there to hold whatever financially strapped team decides to move there.

"There is a very real and meaningful risk we could lose the franchise. It's clear," said Mike Kelly, a Vikings' executive vice president till 2005. "I did a lot of work when I was there on stadium financing and generally on team finances and even when we sold out, it was clear that the team could not be profitable in that stadium."

Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press

It's looking like running back Cedric Benson(notes) won't be taking the ball at all this Sunday when his team takes on the Oakland Raiders, according to NFL.com.

Benson's hip injury kept him out of a second straight practice and the rumor is that he just won't be ready to bear a full load on Sunday. So the recent signing of Larry Johnson(notes) may come in handy pretty quickly. There is talk that Johnson has gotten a lot of repetitions in practice and will be getting the ball a fair amount this weekend if all goes as planned but the conventional wisdom has Johnson sitting well behind Bernard Scott(notes) on the depth chart.

Johnson has only had two days of practice with the team though he's apparently said that he's feeling pretty comfortable with quarterback Carson Palmer(notes).

Source: NFL.com

Now that the Buffalo Bills need a new head coach, the team is apparently ready to throw open the doors to all the former NFL coaches out there: Former Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan will apparently be the first in line, according to NFL.com.

Shanahan will supposedly meet with team owner Ralph Wilson and COO/GM Russ Brandon next week. (This will have to be a tough choice for Brandon since Shanahan would likely fire him if the team ends up hiring him.)

Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher is also supposedly on the team's list, according to Buffalo News. And other possibilities include former Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren as well as former Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick.

Meanwhile, interim coach Perry Fewell has seven games to show himself off to the team and will likely get a formal interview at season's end unless he leads his team to a total implosion.

Source: NFL.comBuffalo News