DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum More good news...Bently may miss 2007 season

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=jc-notes121506&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

"BENTLEY DONE IN '07
Cleveland continues to get terrible news regarding the rash of staph infections that have affected the team over the past three years. Five players have suffered post-surgery infections during that time.

Now, one of those infections could cost prized center LeCharles Bentley another year. Bentley, who signed a six-year, $36 million contract which included a $12 million signing bonus in the offseason, tore his right patellar tendon on the opening day of training camp in July. He subsequently suffered a staph infection and spent more than a month in the hospital.

The infection not only cost Bentley time in his recovery, but he recently had a second surgery performed by

damnit.

I mean seriously, when is this kind of crap going to end for the Browns?

I think that the staph infection should make him eligible for non football related illness list. I hate seeing all this money count against the cap and the players (Courtney) dont even get field time.

I hope they give Smith, Sowells, and Matua get some time down the stretch, too see what they got. They should run one at time out there and give them each a quarter or so. Let them play with the vets around them. I really hate hearing about Bentley <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />. I just figured it was going to be this way, when the rumors started about him missing next year. I wish him, well in his recovery.

I wonder if it's cleveland clinic or whtever hospital that has the staph prb n not the teams facilities? hmm

Here is the rest of the article... Same source... <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />





HUGE Blow... Dawgs, we just cannot catch a break... This [censored] just keeps happening to us and I cannot help but believe that we may indeed be cursed...

Forget the football implications, I hope the man can recover enough to return to a normal life... <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Man, I hope it's not the Clinic,, I was just there for surgery and for 6 days of recovery time... Frankly, based on my experience, the Clinic is very much careful when it comes to spreading infections.. These people are clean freaks of the highest order.. Again, only based on my experience.But I don't see how it can happen there..

I was wondering if the clinic surgery center I was at is the same that players go into when they have surgery... Again, if so, I don't see how the Clinic is the problem...

these staph infections are just completely out of hand. we're regressing back into the "mistake on the lake".

but seriously, our guys are going to have to start going to other facilities or something because staph infections are a very serious threat when they get outa control

Dammit. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

un friggin believable...

The article does say "could" - and its Yahoo, so take it for what its worth. Isn't this old news as well? I thought this was discussed a month or so ago.

Hopefully he recovers fully. The infection takes a toll on the body. Here's to hoping he regains his strength so he can perform at the level we expect from him.

We heard rumors of this a few weeks back and I thought it was only someone grabbing for a story. Now, I am starting to believe it really could be...the only real lineman we have signed in the last 7 years is now out again. This would suck!

I really hope they are just grabbing for a story.

The staph breakouts really concern me, but I remember someone posting that secondary surgeries are common to clean out scar tissue. I hope that is all it is!

I think this solidifies Freely!

Ditto <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Makes you wonder whether he'll ever get back to the caliber of player he was. Torn patella and two years off the field.... You almost feel like its back to square one. I suspect the GM now understands the importance of depth.

j/c

I hope these guys are getting out of Northeastern OH for their recovery. I am dead serious.

DQ is next up...get the surgery and get out of town.

Unreal.

im glad we pulled the trigger on fraley. now keep him here and if he continues the steady play he may have the starting spot at C even when bentley comes back. you gotta figure, if fraley continues to be a solid NFL starting center and bentley was on the shelf for a year mabey two, he needs to go to G rather than "fixing something that ain't broke"

We absolutely must re-sign Hank.

No free agent is going to want to come to cleveland for fear of staph infection it is really getting out of hand.

At this point, I'm just hoping he can come back in '08 and be just as good a player as he was before he got hurt.

KWII was out for two years and looks pretty good.

Bentley is young enough that I believe he can do the same if the injury heals properly. Then again, I don't know much about this type of injury - just hoping for the best.

Unless LCB has a 2nd staph infection, this isn't news or new.

ya gotta wonder if it's something in the water... what is going on!?!?!?!? sheesh

heres an article i found

Staph infections in athletes increasing

By Tom Withers
Associated Press
CLEVELAND ? Brian Russell had no idea what hit him.
Tony Dejak, Associated PressHead athletic trainer Marty Lauzon disinfects a table at the Cleveland Browns facility, Teams are fighting more staph infections. A guy who routinely tackles 250-pound running backs head-on and occasionally gets pulverized by rampaging 350-pound NFL linemen for a living nearly saw his season end because of a microscopic germ.
The Cleveland Browns safety was flattened by a staph infection that hospitalized him during the preseason.
"I went from being in tiptop shape, to a few hours later, being knocked on my butt and having surgery," Russell said, recalling his scary scrape with a skin bacteria that's becoming harder for antibiotics such as penicillin to defeat.
"It happened just like that."
Stories like Russell's are becoming more common. Staph infections, in varying and sometimes deadly forms, are being reported in greater numbers across Ohio and nationwide as more virulent and resilient strains are infecting high school, college and professional athletes.
Football players, wrestlers and even fencers have contracted methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, a serious superbug once isolated to hospitals and health-care settings that has found its way into locker rooms, weight rooms and athletic training facilities. Despite widely available information about the dangers of skin infections, staph has continued spreading.
"We don't know why," said Dr. Steve Gordon, the Cleveland Clinic's department chairman of infectious disease. "It's why we encourage everyone to practice proper hygiene, especially athletes who can be more at higher risk."
An alarming rise in cases in the general population and athletic community has led to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue warnings about the dangers of staph. The CDC has worked closely with several sports organizations, including the NFL and NCAA to educate athletes on hygiene and preventive measures.
NFL players are advised to frequently wash their hands with soap and water, to report skin lesions to their team's medical staff, to wash cuts with soap and water and apply the proper dressings daily.
Still, the problem has grown.
Since 2003, at least three NFL teams ? the Browns, St. Louis Rams and Washington Redskins ? have documented multiple cases of staph infections. Last summer, two Toronto Blue Jays players contracted staph, which prompted the club to have its clubhouse sterilized.
This fall, three high school football players in suburban Lakewood were hospitalized for staph infections. Their school was one of several in the Cleveland area that reported multiple staph cases this year. Health officials aren't sure if the cases were related.
But even before the strain started spreading, staph has long been a health hazard for athletes who share towels, whirlpools and common areas like locker rooms.
The bacteria is typically found in the nasal passages and on the skin of healthy people, but it is potentially deadly when it enters the body through scratches and scrapes.
Once inside, it can cause blood and joint infections, and pneumonia.
"I was in the most pain that I have ever felt ever in my life," said Cavaliers forward Drew Gooden, who contracted a staph infection in his right leg three years ago while with the Orlando Magic. "I kept playing on it, thinking it was going to heal but the infection got worse and worse to the point where my leg swelled up and I couldn't bend my knee."
Athletes aren't alone as targets for staph.
A study this year funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 59 percent of all skin infections in U.S. emergency rooms have been caused by MRSA. The staph, which enters through lesions in the skin and grows best in damp areas, has confounded doctors and pharmacists looking for an antibiotic to fight it.
The proportion of infections due to MRSA ranged from 15 percent to as high as 74 percent in some hospitals, the study showed.
This summer, after five Redskins players were infected, the team had its practice facility sprayed with a sterilizing agent that controls the growth of bacteria and mold.
The club also installed new carpeting and painted the locker room, weight room, training room and other areas at Redskins Park in Ashburn, Va. In addition, benches in the locker room were replaced with individual wooden stools for each player, and a 15-year-old whirlpool bath was removed.
The team has had no incidents of staph since.
"The thing that I think is most important is educating the players what to look for, being smart about when you have an open skin lesion, don't be getting in common whirlpools and things like that. You've got to really clean them good after you get them," said Bubba Tyer, the Redskins' trainer for 35 years.
"In the old days, when we played on Astroturf when it was new, remember all the burns and everything we'd get? We'd always put a bottle of surgical scrub soap in the shower and let them shower with that," he said. "We've done things like that, and it's working out well so far."
MRSA is passed person-to-person through skin contact, and while its symptoms are normally mild, it can be fatal if left untreated.
In 2003, Ricky Lannetti, 21, a senior wide receiver at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa., died suddenly from a staph infection. Friends and teammates remembered him not feeling well leading up to his final game, but he didn't think anything was seriously wrong.
For Russell, a tender elbow at first seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. He figured it came from one of many blows taken and given during training camp and in an Aug. 26 preseason game on the artificial turf in Buffalo.
But as he relaxed at home during an evening a few days after facing the Bills, Russell complained to his wife, Leslie, that he was hurting more than normal.
"She was like, 'C'mon, get outta here, you get those (scratches) every day,"' he said.
"It didn't look like anything to worry about," she said.
But overnight, Russell's sore elbow became horribly swollen and he and Leslie knew something was wrong.
"In a couple hours, it blew up, Russell said. "It was real, real big. By the time they got me to the hospital, my arm was overrun by the infection."
While not an outbreak, the Browns' alarming rise in staph cases brought the club to request assistance from the Cleveland Clinic, its healthcare provider and a sponsor. The Clinic twice sent a team to examine the team's headquarters and indoor practice field house in Berea, Ohio.
The Clinic concluded the team was following proper procedure and CDC recommendations to prevent staph and that the five cases involving players were unrelated.
Russell's bout with staph was similar to what happened to teammates Ben Taylor and Braylon Edwards, who both had elbow scratches that became infected. Browns tight end Kellen Winslow and center LeCharles Bentley battled staph following knee surgeries.
Russell credited team trainer Marty Lauzon and the team's medical staff for making a quick diagnosis and getting him treatment.
"It was crazy," he said, rubbing his hand over the long incision scar on his right elbow. "Lucky for me our doctors recognized it immediately."
Russell, who has begun wearing long sleeves as protection and a precaution, will never look at a cut the same way.
"All I had was a sore elbow, something where you think you might have knocked it on a door or on a wall," he said. "It was a little abrasion that I've had thousands of times."


linky

No it isn't new..we had heard this was going to happen and I said Phil should plan as if LB wasn't going to be here in 07..this only confirms it..but these infections are deadly..

they are crazy. i had a family member on his deathbed from one he got in a small cut from a nail <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

The only reason that Im not in the NFL right now is because Im just to worried about getting a staph infection.

[color:"orange"]I've only shared with a few people on here, but from what I've heard Bentley's injury is/was career threatening. If I was a betting man, I'd bet on Bent not playing a down next year...his staph infection was as serious as it gets...luckily he's better off now than he was a few months ago.

Here's hoping he's back in 08. [/color]

Here's to another "Comeback Player of the Year" Award...

I know you say you have a "inside" contact, and I don't question that....and what you say confirms what I have felt for some time. Sometimes you can read into things....the type of injury, what people are saying, how the person is getting along. And for some time I have had the feeling Bentley is pretty much done.

Maybe I am wrong and just forget some of the articles or just flat out can't remember them....maybe some of you can....has Bentley said anything since this whole thing started??

Usually you get a few of the standard blurbs.."I plan on working hard", "I can't wait to get started", stuff like that.

Has Bentley said anything related to this matter?

I think Bentley is sitting on bad news and on a operation that didn't go well, and very possibly a man who doesn't really have the desire to push himself that way anymore.

I am not saying that to rip the guy in any way.

I get the feeling Bentley's time in a Browns uniform ended after the first 2-3 plays of training camp last summer.

Posters must forget who says what. It might be wise to keep a mental tally of who usually is right, that way...when the next argument occurs, you have a pretty good idea who is trying to inform and who is blowing smoke up your ass.

To repeat something that was said a few months ago......and like Mav just said....Bentley's injury is career threatening.

I'll also repeat a couple of other things I said back then. Bentley's knee cap was in his thigh. He has not been to Berea since his injury. For most of the time, he hasn't even been able to walk. He will not play next year.

sadly i have to agree with you....

when you stop and think about it, it's very odd...no news of rehab, working hard...nothing....

i remember when it first happened someone posted a rehab schedule and it was designed to get the person moving right away....



the one thing that makes me wonder about all this is what could prevent it....imo the nfl needs to take a good look at artificial turf...that imo is the problem...all these domes...all this fake turf....its got to be a veritable breeding ground for crap like this....

add all the cuts and burns you get, and you've got problems...

LOL....I agree with that. When I said that earlier, it was in reference to people like Savage.....not board members.. People close to the situation. Sometimes you get a feel for the language used and I have never had a good feel for the things being said about Bentley.

As to the board, I think we pretty much have the same short list of posters, who might not be right on all things, or even be in agreement with, but at least post with some reason behind their thoughts.

The possibility of Bentley missing 2007 - and perhaps being done for good - is rather depressing. It sucks.

Thats what I was thinking......They are about a month late...

This is horrible news in contract discussions. His agent is going to try to bend us over backwards now. I like Hank but I don't think he's worth the type of money we're now going to have to pay him to keep him around. Maybe I'm wrong on that but it seems like we're in a horrible position with a player and agent that now have all the leverage in contract discussions. Do I want to keep him? Absolutely but we need to really be judicious with how we spend our FA dollars. We need so many trench players that I don't want to see us overpay for anyone. We're not in a position to let him walk, which never bodes well in most cases.

The only positive in this whole situation is that this may finally be the straw that breaks the camels back. Time to start investing DP's in the trenches.

It was already speculated that Bentley would be gone till the middle of next year anyway. (best case senario coming back from a ruptured pattelar tendon)

Bentley may never come back. If he does, he probably won't be 100% for a long time anyway.

[color:"orange"]That is not the case, let me assure you of that...his infection almost lead to him losing his leg...he's VERY commited to returning, but he wont rush it. [/color]

Of friken course <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Has there been any update on this? Did Romeo address it or even Savage?

[color:"white"] Bentley can still block

Center knocks away queries on future
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Mary Kay Cabot
Plain Dealer Reporter

Browns center LeCharles Bentley made no guarantees that he'll be back in 2007, but assured fans Wednesday that he'll play football again.

Bentley, who underwent surgery July 28 to repair a torn patellar tendon, declined to con firm an NFL Network report that he's con templating an other surgery that could side line him for 2007.

"I can't really talk about that," he said at his alma mater St. Ignatius after a estab lishing a schol arship there in his mother's name. "There's a lot of innuendo right now. A lot of people are speculating on a lot of different things."

But asked if he'll play again, Bentley said, "Why wouldn't I? That's kind of an off-the-wall question. Why wouldn't I?"

Because there have been rumors that he might not, he was told.

"Really?" he said. "That's news to me."

Browns General Manager Phil Savage has also declined to comment specifically on Bentley's availability for 2007, saying he'll have an update in January or February.

Asked how the knee feels, Bentley, who walked without a pronounced limp, said he really didn't want to talk about that, but kidded, "I think I look good. That's the most important thing. I haven't lost my looks or my sense of humor."

He did allow that he's been working out and making progress. "I'm getting better," he said. "Write that and that's the end of it. I'm getting better and we'll see what happens."

After the initial surgery, Bentley had a staph infection surgically removed from the knee and was hospitalized at the Cleveland Clinic.
But he's back riding an exercise bike and walking in a pool.

"Anything low impact, I'm all for it," he joked.

Has he begun jogging yet?

"Do you see my belly?" he said with a chuckle. "Does it look like I've been jogging? I've never been a fan of running. Ask coach [Chuck] Kyle. Even when I'm able to do so, I don't plan on doing much of it."

Bentley admitted that the past five months have "been pretty difficult. But it's a humbling experience."

He said he's gone to Browns games, but sits up high where it's safer for his knee than on the field. He said he's been a good dad to his two toddler sons, playing video games - "I'm pretty good right now" - and doing extensive charity work.

Bentley donated $100,000 to St. Ignatius to establish the Verneda Bentley Endowed Scholarship in honor of his mother, who stressed the importance of education to her children and saw to it that Bentley attend St. Ignatius. The scholarships will enable two minority students to attend St. Ignatius.

"For my mother to have five kids, to grow up on E. 55th in the projects, to be a welfare recipient and to come from where she came from, that's huge," said Bentley. "She's not on welfare anymore, hasn't been for the past 20-plus years and she's raised five successful kids. She's been the inspiration for my life."

Bentley said the time off has been a reality check.

"You can kind of come to terms with your own mortality as a professional athlete," he said. "When you're young, you think it will never end. But you have to prepare yourself for life after football."

He said he's not sure if he would've been able to make a difference for the 4-10 Browns this season.

"Maybe I would've been able to help, maybe I wouldn't have," he said. "Maybe they have issues going on that I wouldn't have been able to help with, but we'll never know. At least I would've been there going through it with them, as opposed to being on the outside and reading things in the paper.

"Once you're part of the family, you hate people talking about family members in a negative light."

He said the charity work has helped keep his spirits up. In addition to the scholarship, he served Thanksgiving dinner to the poor, is sending two fans to the Buckeyes national championship game and is providing a furnished apartment for the mother of a toddler who was assaulted.

"It always feels good to make other people feel good," he said. "I can't be part of the team right now, but I can be part of the city, and the city is what makes the team. Getting the team and the city back on track is my ultimate goal, but I'm just happy to be able to do something right now."

He said he's thrilled that fellow Buckeye Troy Smith won the Heisman and was asked if he'd look good in an orange helmet. "I think he'd look good in an orange helmet with me snapping to him," said Bentley. "That would be pretty cool. You guys could write a lot of stuff about that."

Extra points:

Romeo Crennel named Derek Anderson the starter for the Tampa Bay game because Charlie Frye still hasn't been able to throw. Crennel said he's making slow progress. . . . Reuben Droughns was excused for a personal matter but is expected back today or Friday and will play Sunday. . . . Linebacker Nick Speegle, a sixth-round pick in 2005, was signed to the active roster. . . . Andra Davis and Joe Jurevicius missed all or parts of practice with their concussions and are questionable. . . . Leigh Bodden (ankle) sat out Wednesday and was in a boot. . . . Nat Dorsey will replace Kelly Butler (broken foot) at right tackle.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

mcabot@plaind.com, 216-999-4670






[/color]

Thought this was a nice piece on LB..

He is walking without a limp. WEEEEEEEE, now that is some good news. Hopefully it's not fools gold, but I'll fall for any good news on the injury front. It just has too turn for the better at some point. He sure is doing some good things in the community and that is great. Nice article and thanks for posting