Steelers WR Sammie Coates divulges groin surgery, which begs the question “Why?”

The Pittsburgh Steelers are usually a very tight-lipped organization. From the front office down to Mike Tomlin, the public only knows what the franchise wants them to know.

Well, until this past season.

It was Le’Veon Bell’s honest, although unintelligent, comments after the Steelers’ AFC Championship loss to the New England Patriots regarding his injured groin which sparked controversy regarding the Steelers policy, or lack thereof, of reporting injuries.

The Seattle Seahawks were threatened to lose not just money, but potential draft picks as well, when they were accused of doing something similar with cornerback Richard Sherman throughout the 2016-2017 season.

If a memo didn’t go out to the team after Bell’s incident stating you don’t talk about injuries of any magnitude to the media, it should have. And if that memo did get sent out, wide receiver Sammie Coates clearly didn’t read it.

Monday evening, Coates took to social media to announce he had surgery on his pelvis. Clearly, fans inquired, and Coates admitted to having surgery on his groin.

See below...

The Coates groin injury is a new, and undisclosed, injury which was severe enough to cause offseason surgery. It could have been a large reason why his play was far from stellar after bursting onto the scene in the first four games, but this isn’t the point.

The point is although social media gives fans tremendous, and unprecedented, access to players, doesn’t mean we, the fans, need to know exactly what is going on. This can be traced back to Antonio Brown’s dubious Facebook Live video, as well as the myriad of avenues players can explore via social media.

There is always a line in the sand, and it seems as if the Steelers are tip-toeing close to going over the line. Is there a problem with Antonio Brown and Eli Rogers’ SnapChat stories which show every detail in their workout, nutrition plan and song selections in the car? No, there isn’t, but maybe some things should be kept sacred, and maybe in 2017 the Steelers will aim to have their actions on the field do the talking, and not their social media accounts exploding off the field.

I discuss this more in the latest BTSC podcast “Steelers Hangout” above. Give it a listen in the player above, and follow all of the BTSC podcasts on iTunes by searching "The Standard is the Standard", as well as on several podcast apps for Android users.

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