Ram Interim Coach Has Heart Procedure

Joe Vitt, the St. Louis Rams’ interim coach while Mike Martz recovers from a heart ailment, underwent a heart procedure Monday.

Vitt, 51, had a cardiac catheterization and was back at work by lunchtime. He held his regular afternoon postgame news conference, making a handful of jokes about his health. An angioplasty had been scheduled, the team said, but doctors decided it was not necessary.

Vitt told players about the procedure after the Rams’ 24-21 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.

“I informed the team after the game that what I say in the locker room stays in the locker room,” Vitt said. “Well, obviously, that didn’t happen. By this afternoon, I was getting a heart transplant.”

Vitt said he checked into a hospital at 6 a.m. Martz was there too, for a sinus operation.

“We looked like grumpy old men,” Vitt said. “I tell you, it was a sore sight.”

Martz, 54, is being treated for endocarditis, an infection of the lining of the valves of the heart. He will be out for the rest of the season.

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Arizona got good news when an MRI exam determined that receiver Anquan Boldin suffered only a bone bruise in his right knee during the Cardinals’ 34-13 loss at Dallas.

No timetable was set for Boldin’s return, but the Cardinals said he wouldn’t be out as long as feared.

Boldin sat out three months, including six regular-season games, after tearing cartilage in his right knee at the start of the 2004 training camp.

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Seattle safety Ken Hamlin keeps progressing in his recovery from being assaulted two weeks ago.

Seahawk Coach Mike Holmgren said that Hamlin’s headaches were not as intense and that he was “doing better” while recuperating at his home one week after being released from a hospital, where he was treated for a fractured skull, a blood clot near the brain and bruised brain tissue.

Seattle police said over the weekend that they are investigating a possible link between Hamlin’s assault by two men and the subsequent homicide of 31-year-old Terrell Milam a few hours after Hamlin’s beating. Milam’s brother has said Milam was one of the two who beat Hamlin.

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End Simeon Rice, sent home from San Francisco before Tampa Bay’s 15-10 loss against the 49ers, probably will return to the lineup against Carolina on Sunday, Coach Jon Gruden said.

Although the Buccaneers didn’t say why Rice was deactivated, it’s believed he missed a team meeting after the team arrived in California.