NOTES : Thomas Unhappy With Media, Pulls Out

The Buffalo Bills continued to make more off-the-field news when their sensational but sensitive tailback, Thurman Thomas, decided not to attend Wednesday morning’s mandatory media session.

Team spokesman Denny Lynch released a statement later that called Thomas’ absence a “misunderstanding” and indicated that the star runner will attend today’s interview sessions.

The Buffalo News, however, is reporting in today’s editions that Thomas skipped the session to protest what he considers a lack of publicity.

According to more than one Buffalo player, Thomas became agitated and left the team breakfast after reading various morning sports sections that apparently didn’t include enough stories about him.

Thomas, who was recognized enough to be voted the NFL’s most valuable player for 1991, had a total of 2,038 rushing and receiving yards this season. The fourth-year back from Oklahoma State does not take rejection lightly. He remains bitter about being a second-round draft choice.

Thomas was projected as a high first-round pick, but questions about an old knee injury scared off several teams, including the Rams, who instead took Gaston Green with the 13th selection in 1988.

Thomas’ draft-day dejection was captured by ESPN, which had a camera in his home, anticipating that Thomas would be a top pick. Thomas, though, slid through the first round into the second, and at one point fell asleep while on the air.

Thomas has used the tape as a motivational tool in becoming the NFL’s best all-around tailback.

“I looked at it a lot my first couple of years,” Thomas said earlier this week. “But I’ve probably looked at it two or three times this year.”

Thomas could not be reached for comment about his absence. It was not immediately known whether the tailback will be fined by the league for missing the mandatory appearance.

Buffalo Coach Marv Levy missed an interview session last season and was fined a reported $5,000.

Thomas joined teammate Bruce Smith on this week’s all-sensitive team. Smith, the All-Pro defensive end, continued his pleas to be traded by Buffalo because of a few derogatory letters he has received this season.

Levy settled the question Wednesday.

“We’re not going to trade Bruce Smith,” he said. “Flat out, no. I’d like to say this: Bruce has received a few letters from bigots. He has received a flood, a flood of letters from people in Buffalo and western New York decrying that type of letter, bolstering him and backing him up.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to tell Bruce Smith. I haven’t yet, but I’m going to: ‘Don’t let a bigot or two chase you out of town. You’re bigger than they are. You don’t have a problem, that guy has the problem.’ ”

Injury updates: Bruce Smith did not practice Wednesday, to prevent swelling in his tender knee. He is expected to play and is not listed on the team’s injury report.

Strong safety Leonard Smith did not practice and is still listed as questionable for Super Bowl XXVI because of an infection in one knee. Levy said it is becoming less likely that Leonard Smith will play. He would be replaced in the lineup by Dwight Drane.

For the Washington Redskins, safety Terry Hoage, who broke his left arm in Week 7, will be activated and Alvin Walton probably will be taken off the 47-man roster to make room for him.

Taking no chances, the Redskins practiced for two hours Wednesday with their players wearing different jersey numbers.

Washington Coach Joe Gibbs said switching jerseys was more superstition than a fear of spies.

“The last time we went to the Super Bowl, in San Diego, we did that,” he said. “We don’t worry about security here, but we decided to do the same thing we did then.”

Tailback Ricky Ervins of the Redskins, on the pros and cons of being one of the league’s shortest players at 5 feet 7: “The disadvantage is that you can’t see the defense. The advantage is that they can’t see you.”

Buffalo defensive line coach Chuck Dickerson is one of the few participants this week who has put Super Bowl hype in perspective.

“Super Bowl Sunday, what the hell difference does that make?” he said. “There’s still people hungry, there’s still people sick, there’s still kids in downtown Buffalo that didn’t have toys for Christmas. Are you kidding me? What difference does the Super Bowl make in the world? Not a damn bit.

” . . . This is a fun game. The guys who play it should have fun, the people that coach it should have fun, the people who talk about it should have fun. If you start thinking it makes a difference in this world, you’re crazy. The only guys that believe that are at NFL Properties. Two and a half million (dollars) later, they’re real serious.”

Some coaches need to get out: One Buffalo assistant coach saw some media members wearing the popular Malcolm X shirts and caps with the Roman numeral X and thought it had something to do with Super Bowl X.

Kicker Chip Lohmiller of the Redskins was assigned the same locker at the Metrodome that he used while at the University of Minnesota.

During the season, Redskin Coach Joe Gibbs sleeps on a cot in his office three nights a week, but Levy isn’t sure that means Gibbs works any harder.

“Well, I live three minutes from the stadium, so there’s not much sense sleeping in the office,” Levy said. “I don’t know what Joe’s hours are. I get in very early, but I don’t stay real late. I’m there about 5 o’clock (a.m.) but by 10 o’clock (p.m.) I’m home.”

An American Indian leader said he expects a peaceful and dignified demonstration against the use of Indian mascots and nicknames when protesters gather at the Super Bowl.

Clyde Bellecourt, a founder of the American Indian Movement, said he anticipates hundreds of Indians and others will demonstrate outside the Metrodome before and during the game.

“We’re going to let the world know we’re not going to tolerate this kind of behavior,” Bellecourt said. “John Wayne is dead, and it’s time for this kind of racism to go with it.”

John Madden is here to comment on the game in his role as a CBS analyst. But this week Gibbs did some talking about Madden.

“He was the defensive coordinator in 1964 when I went to work as a graduate assistant at San Diego State,” Gibbs recalled. “I didn’t know what a graduate assistant was then. I just thought it was a job that didn’t pay. I was his chauffeur and go-fer. I’d drive him to Riverside and he’d sit in the back smoking cigars and reading the paper. I would go get him sacks of hamburgers.”

Gibbs said Madden is the reason he became an offensive coach, “because I refused to give him the plays before the annual alumni game and he fired me from the defensive staff. I thought he was kidding, but the next day Coach (Don) Coryell came over and said, ‘Hey, why don’t you come over and work with the offense?’ ”

Here for the weather? About one in nine Minnesotans wants a blizzard for Super Bowl Sunday and another 4% want it to be much colder than average, according to the a poll published in Wednesday’s Star Tribune.

“I kind of hope it’s cold so we live up to our reputation,” said Mike Vieceli, a 27-year-old Minneapolis salesman.

The jury’s out: A court administrator is warning judges in Minneapolis that it will be nearly impossible to find hotel rooms this week for criminal trial juries that must be sequestered overnight.

“I don’t know where we’d put them,” Hennepin County District Court Administrator Jack Provo said Tuesday. “Hopefully, the judges will say, ‘Maybe we’ll delay this trial a couple of days.”’

Times wire services contributed to this story.