Riley to Play - Get the rubber room ready

Apparently Kevin Riley is going to play on Saturday, a week after his head bounced between two helmets like a Ping Pong ball. Scary. i think this means that JT is really sold on KR, and that he really wants him to play. I also may be just to screw with the oddsmakers, who dropped the Bears 4 points in two days with the injury issue being played out. Who knows. I just hope this is the right decision and he does not develop Parkinsons disease at 38.

Speaking of football injuries - what the heck is the deal with all of these staph infections? Tom Brady, Barry Bonds and millions of others are getting infected with these arthroscopic procedures that should be a walk in the park. It is a crazy business.

Last year, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, $70 billion dollars of unnecessary infections were created in our nations hospitals, or about 4.5% of the total health care spending in the country. That would be enough to give most of the uninsured children in the country health coverage. Brady goes in for two additional procedures. What is the deal with that? It is because the teams, and their physicians, and their facilities frankly do not get cleaned properly.

If I were the Cleveland Browns, I would wash the entire facility down with bleach after each practice. They have had five guys in the last few years miss games because of staph infections. USC has had a rash (no pun intended) of staph infections (11 players) and has dealt with it severely. The biggest part is that the bacteria can live not only on the body, and transfered by contact, but it can also transfer into the shoulder pads and other pads that can be transfered to other players in that manner.

Kellen Winslow is the latest Brown to be sidelined because if it.

The Bears need to be particularly mindful of this as some think artificial surfaces can cause greater outbreaks of infection, as the bacteria can stick on the field on the artificial surfaces for a short period of time. Getting the rug burn can turn dangerous when it is also filled with dangerous bacteria. This is more true for the Bears since they both play and practice on the artificial surface. I know that some of the new surfaces have anti-bacterial properties, but those are newer surfaces, and I doubt that the one the Bears put in 2001 would have that.

Looking at the Bears current locker-room situation, it is somewhat amazing to me that more of these infections have not crept up in the injury reports of the Bears. Hopefully the staff is keeping up with these issues. I certainly hope they are not relying on the University Janitorial staff to keep the place ship-shape in a infection resistant method, and have made it a real priority (I can say that - I used to work as a University janitor). Hopefully the new SAHPC will make this easier.

GO BEARS!!