Young Expects To Return For 49ers’ Next Game

A groin strain that sidelined Steve Young for much of Sunday’s game against the St. Louis Rams should heal in time for him to start for the San Francisco 49ers at Carolina in two weeks.

Young will have the benefit of resting the injury while the 49ers have a bye week.

“We believe with rest he’ll be ready to go next week and practice and start the ball game against Carolina,” coach George Seifert said Monday.

Young left the Rams game early in the third quarter after aggravating the groin injury. He pulled up near the end of an 11-yard scramble and hobbled off the field.

Elvis Grbac finished San Francisco’s 34-0 win over the Rams.

Young said Monday he felt much better and would spend the bye week resting and taking treatment before resuming practice with the team.

Vikings ponder Green matter

The Minnesota Vikings are still investigating Dennis Green’s highly publicized 1992 affair and will wait until that work is done before discussing the matter with their head coach.

Green was expected to meet with the team’s 10 owners Monday to discuss the situation, which became public last week with the revelation that he paid his former lover to have an abortion.

Although president Roger Headrick, one of the owners, would not say whether such a meeting occurred, none of the other owners were believed to have come to team headquarters Monday.

“I’m not going to tell anybody anything about it,” Headrick said. “It’s an internal matter and we’ll deal with it internally as soon as we have all the information.”

Green was estranged from his first wife when the relationship occurred during his first season as Minnesota’s head coach. He agreed in January 1993 to pay the woman to terminate the pregnancy, but she sued him this summer, claiming he had violated a confidentiality agreement and caused her emotional distress.

A judge dismissed the woman’s suit; Green still has his own suit pending against her.

Injuries have Colts worried

The medical report was of greater concern to the Indianapolis Colts than the team’s best start in nearly two decades or the upcoming game with the defending Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys.

The Colts (2-0) hadn’t swept their first two games since 1977. But the exuberance from the successful start was dimmed by injuries suffered by eight players during Sunday’s 21-7 victory over the New York Jets.

Marshall Faulk, Kipp Vickers and Jay Leeuwenburg were walking with the aid of crutches as the Colts left the field. Ray Buchanan, Tony Bennett, Stephen Grant, Derrick Frazier and Sammie Burroughs were hurting, and coach Lindy Infante was uncertain who would be available for Sunday’s game at Dallas.

“It’s like a MASH unit back there. We’ll lick our wounds. Some of them will get well by Sunday,” Infante said of his team’s locker room.

Packer accepts a deal

Green Bay Packers cornerback Tyrone Williams pleaded no contest in a Lincoln, Neb., court to charges stemming from a shooting incident that occurred two years ago.

Williams, a two-time All-Big Eight cornerback at Nebraska, will be sentenced Nov. 19 on a felony charge of unlawfully discharging a firearm and to a misdemeanor assault charge.

His plea reflected a deal with prosecutors, who agreed to reduce a second felony firearms charge to a misdemeanor assault.

Police reports said Williams fired two shots into the rear quarter-panel of a car driven by University of Nebraska-Lincoln student Brooke Bohac on Jan. 30, 1994.