The Pittsburgh Steelers warned quarterback Ben Roethlisberger last year that continuing to ride motorcycles might affect his contract, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Wednesday.

The Super Bowl-winning quarterback suffered a broken jaw, nose, nine-inch laceration on his head, and other injuries after colliding into a car while riding a motorcycle without a helmet in Pittsburgh on Monday.

Roethlisberger's agent Leigh Steinberg said the Steelers sent him a letter that said the team deemed motorcycle riding as a dangerous activity and could affect his pay. But Steinberg said there is no language in the 2004 contract that specifically forbids riding, the Post-Gazette said.

"They did send us a letter clarifying the general language," Mr. Steinberg said. "But there's not a specific motorcycle clause in the signing bonus language. It does not lay out proscribed activity."

Most NFL contracts forbid "dangerous activities," which are different with all teams, some of whom detail which activities are off-limits.

The Post-Gazette cited an unidentified agent who said that the Steelers' letter was not enough to force Roethlisberger to forfeit any pay, since motorcycle riding was not specifically prohibited in the 2004 contract he and the Steelers signed.

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"But I promise you this," the agent said, "his next contract, it will be in there."

Roethlisberger was upgraded to fair condition at Mercy Hospital on Tuesday, a day after his bloody motorcycle accident at a busy Pittsburgh intersection left him and his team shaken.

Despite being tossed high into the air after his made-for-speed motorcycle rammed into a car, causing him to smack his head on the car’s windshield, Roethlisberger escaped career-threatening injuries. He could be out of the hospital within three to five days

While the Steelers aren’t yet talking about accident, which occurred when Roethlisberger was riding helmet-less on a racing motorcycle, it is all but certain they found his latest medical update very encouraging.

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Roethlisberger’s doctors stressed during a brief news conference Tuesday that his knees are not injured, positive news for an athlete who needed knee surgery only last season.

They also said his brain is functioning normally despite the concussion and the trauma of a crash that caused Roethlisberger to fly off his motorcycle and smack a car windshield with such force, his head left a glass-cracking dent in the shape of his skull.

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