A string of emails that began in 2010 with the Atlanta Falcons’ head trainer and reached all the way to owner Arthur Blank showed a franchise worried about its “excessive” reliance on painkillers to treat players and the potential embarrassment that could cause the team and the NFL.

One topic raised in the email chain concerned a review by an outside agency that found that the team spent $81,000 on medication prescriptions for players in 2009 — nearly three times the league average.

Almost every recipient on the email chain — including Blank, president Rich McKay, general manager Thomas Dimitroff and then-head athletic trainer Marty Lauzon — is still with the team, which plays the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI on Sunday.

“That’s being litigated now. That’s not something we’re going discuss right now,” Dimitroff said Monday night when asked about the emails. “When the time is right, we’ll readdress that.”

The emails were entered into court record Thursday as part of a proposed class-action lawsuit by more than 1,800 former NFL players who claim they were encouraged by the medical and training staffs of NFL teams to abuse painkillers and continue playing without regard for their long-term health.

The case is being heard in the Northern District of California by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup. The same allegations were originally filed in a 2014 class-action lawsuit that is currently before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The email chain was presented to the court as an example of thousands of similar documents gathered during discovery that the ex-players’ lawyers want entered into the record. It was coincidental that the Falcons chain was released before the Super Bowl.

Lauzon was not with the team at the time of the critical review. He became the Falcons’ head trainer in January 2010 and currently serves as the team’s director of sports medicine and performance.

He first wrote to Dimitroff in May 2010 to note the conclusions contained in the review by SportPharm, an outside agency brought in by the NFL to look at how teams purchased, dispensed and tracked medications, including powerful painkillers and prescription drugs. Among the problems Lauzon highlighted from SportPharm’s review was the Falcons’ “excessive dispensation” of narcotics and other medications, which risked creating a “culture of dependency.”

“Within the first days on the job, I was informed that we barely missed a DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency] investigation because of improper billing issues,” Lauzon told Dimitroff.

A central contention of the painkiller lawsuit is that teams did not properly keep records about prescriptions and which players were getting drugs.

Dimitroff forwarded the email to the owner just hours later.

“I thought it quite important for you to be aware of a rather sensitive subject and one we need to discuss before we include others on this topic matter,” Dimitroff wrote to Blank.

“Agree — we should talk about this together with Rich [McKay],” Blank replied.

It’s not clear which practices changed as part of the discussion, and there is no evidence the Falcons violated league rules. What’s clear is that Lauzon was warning team executives that practices uncovered during the review could embarrass the team and raise compliance issues with the NFL.

Lauzon’s first email to Dimitroff also copied in Jeff Fish, who was Atlanta’s strength coach at the time and was released by the club in January 2013. The trainer expressed concerns that “players at the end of their careers going through medical issues” would seek media attention and “say they abused or are now addicted” to drugs as a result of the club’s practices.

Dimitroff subsequently forwarded the emails to McKay, who remains team president and also serves as chairman of the NFL Competition Committee, making him one of the more influential executives in the league.

McKay reached out the next day to Dr. Elliot Pellman, a rheumatologist who controversially led the NFL’s committee on brain injury at the time and later became a league medical adviser.

HOUSTON — Not much has gone wrong lately for Kyle Shanahan. But after his Super Bowl media night session wound up Monday, the Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator and presumptive San Francisco 49ers head coach had reason to be worried.

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  Kyle Shanahan’s future may be in San Francisco, but his sole focus right now is preparing the Falcons for the Patriots.

The federal prohibition on sports betting turns 25 this year, but Americans aren’t expected to have any trouble getting action on Super Bowl LI.

Americans will stake an estimated $4.7 billion on Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and underdog Atlanta Falcons, according to numbers released Tuesday by the American Gaming Association. The $4.7 billion is as much as is believed to have been sold on online retailer Amazon from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday in 2016.

The AGA estimates that 97 percent of the money wagered on the Super Bowl in the U.S. will be done so illegally, in an underground sports betting market that has thrived since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was enacted in 1992.

The estimates are extrapolated primarily from the wagering on the Super Bowl in Nevada, which is tracked by the state’s gaming control board, and are difficult to verify, with so much of the betting taking place in an unregulated market.

PASPA restricts legal sports betting to a handful of states, with only Nevada being allowed to offer wagering on single events. Last year, $132.54 million was bet on Super Bowl 50 at Nevada’s regulated sportsbooks. The rest was shipped to offshore sportsbooks and local bookmakers, who have moved away from the stereotypical phone rooms and primarily operate online now.

The United Kingdom, Canada and Australia are examples of international jurisdictions with regulated sports betting markets. There are multiple ongoing efforts to take the U.S. in that direction.

The AGA, which represents the casino industry in Washington, D.C., is in the process of building a coalition to address PASPA and plans to eventually begin lobbying to lift the prohibition. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Conference of State Legislatures and law enforcement officials, including a former deputy director at the FBI, are part of the coalition. The AGA also has had recent discussions with broadcasters, advertisers and sports leagues about their efforts, in addition to interested parties on Capitol Hill.

“I think, when the time comes to push this publicly on the Hill, it could be helpful to have some strange bedfellows leading the charge there,” AGA CEO and president Geoff Freeman told ESPN in a phone interview. “And I feel good about where we are in terms of recruiting those individuals, folks who’ve been perhaps outspoken on amateur sports and things like that, but want to take a fresh look at this.”

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was a past opponent of sports betting and in the early 2000s attempted to eliminate betting on college sports in Nevada. But McCain has since publicly stated that he believes Congress should re-examine the issue.

In addition to the AGA’s efforts, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has been reviewing federal laws while meeting with stakeholders to form the basis of comprehensive gambling legislation.

“It’s time for Congress to update the outdated gaming laws so that they actually address what is currently happening across the United States, including sports betting and daily fantasy sports,” Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. from New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told ESPN. “I plan to put forward a proposal in the House in the spring that will provide for a more level playing field for all forms of gambling while also including strong consumer protections.”

Two of the largest sports organizations are standing in the way. The NFL and NCAA remain opposed to expanding legal sports betting in the U.S. Both cite concerns over the impact it would have on the integrity of the games.

“Sports wagering threatens both the integrity of the game and the well-being of student-athletes,” an NCAA spokesperson told ESPN.

Legalization proponents, including the NBA, argue that a heavily regulated sports betting market that is overseen by licensed officials will help protect the integrity of the games. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has said it is time to bring sports betting “out of the underground and into the sunlight were it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”

Major League Baseball and the NHL have hinted at a willingness to give fresh consideration to the subject, but neither has come out publicly in full support. The PGA Tour, under new commissioner Jay Monahan, has also said it is looking at the issue.

HOUSTON — Six jobs were open this offseason in the NFL and those six teams have made their choices at head coach. New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, in his sixth Super Bowl and trying for his fifth ring, was not one of those choices. He interviewed for jobs with the Los Angeles Rams, Jacksonville Jaguars and San Francisco 49ers.

But with the Patriots still playing, the Rams selected a first-time head coach in Sean McVay, the Jaguars hired Doug Marrone, and the 49ers are poised to make Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan their new coach after Super Bowl LI.

“I was humbled I had an opportunity to interview for a few of them this year,” McDaniels said Monday night. “It wasn’t the right — I’ve said it, if I have a chance again I’d be thankful for it because there’s only 32 of them and I’d be honored to do it — it would have to be the right time, the right place, the right people. They’d have to want me, I’d have to want that.

“And that just wasn’t the case this year, and those people hired great coaches. I wish them nothing but the best. And if that ever comes up for me, I’ll be thankful that it does.”

McDaniels was 11-17 in his tenure as Denver Broncos’ head coach in 2009 and ’10 — he was fired with four games remaining in the 2010 season. He spent eight seasons with the Patriots before he was hired by the Broncos, and after he was fired by the Broncos he spent one season with the Rams before returning to the Patriots in 2012.