The Rams managed to keep the Rath incident under wraps because, as a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to PFT, Rath had a medical procedure that kept him from traveling to Atlanta. But for that development, Rath still wouldn’t have been there for the game because, as the source confirmed it to PFT, his leave of absence already had begun.
The source said that the Rams also had communicated the information regarding the arrest to the league office, meaning that both the Rams and the NFL concealed the situation during the week that the Rams were in the epicenter of the NFL’s biggest event of the year, with an
article on NFL.com providing the official reason for Rath’s absence from Super Bowl week without even mentioning the other official reason that would have kept him away from the team. (Rath also missed the NFC Championship, but the surgery happened after the win over the Saints.)