Packers' Randall Cobb vows never to wear game microphone again

GREEN BAY, Wis. --Randall Cobb knows he'll never be able to say definitively that the NFL Films microphone he wore during a playoff game last season caused his lung injury, but the Green Bay Packers receiver is not taking any chances.

"I'll never be mic'd up again," Cobb said Thursday.

It wasn't the first time Cobb agreed to wear a microphone, but it was the first time he had an issue with it.

He was injured in the first quarter of the playoff loss to the Arizona Cardinalson Jan. 16. After coughing up blood, he was taken to a Phoenix-area hospital where he had to spend the night.

Cobb was hurt when he landed on his back while trying to make a catch. He later described the injury as a punctured lung. The team acknowledged at the time he had a bruised lung.

"This [microphone] theory isn't anything new," Cobb said. "It's something we've talked about plenty of times. There's no way to prove it, but there's no way to disprove it, either."

Last week, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers lamented what he viewed as overuse of on-field microphones for a variety of reasons.

"I don't feel comfortable being mic'd up, and I will say this: Randall Cobb had a serious injury last year in the playoff game, and I believe -- and he would as well, and the team -- that that was caused by him being mic'd up," Rodgers said last week on a podcast hosted by former teammate A.J. Hawk.

"He fell on his mic pack and he had an injury to his insides that kept him out of the game, probably would have kept him out the rest of the playoffs. And the puncture spot was directly adjacent to his mic pack."

Cobb has not sustained any long-term impact from the injury and has been able to participate fully in the offseason program, but reiterated that he won't wear a microphone again.

"If we were going on a Super Bowl run and we had that live feed during the game, it's pretty cool to look back and hear what you're thinking and hear what you're talking about," Cobb said. "It's pretty cool in that instance, but I don't think it's worth the risk."