An outbreak of MRSA at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers practice facility could cause the postponement of Sunday's Eagles game at Raymond James Stadium.
According to a report, the NFLPA may advise the NFL to postpone the Philadelphia Eagles vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers game due to a MRSA outbreak at the Buccaneers facility pending the results of an MRSA containment report.
According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, there have been three Buccaneers that have been infected with the staff infection.
Carl Nicks had been infected with MRSA but returned to practice after recovering from the infection in September.
The risk here is that the infection is highly contagious and it is not just the players but also equipment personnel and coaching staff that could be put at risk.
NFLPA representitive George Atallah tweeted this statement Friday: "All of our focus at this time is to work with the players, the club and the NFL to best contain, eliminate and treat MRSA."
According to Schefter, Nicks, Lawrence Tynes and a rookie cornerback Jonathan Banks have been effected by this outbreak.
Nicks has shown symptoms of a repeat infection.
MRSA is a type of staph infection that's become resistant to the antibiotics commonly used to treat ordinary staph infections.
It is worth monitoring this situation as the league may choose to postpone the game, which would effectively give the Eagles a second bye week but likely force either the game to be moved to another facility or played at a date and time to be determined.
Rescheduling the game could be problematic for the NFL, as the Eagles bye week is in week 12 and the Buccaneers have already had their bye week in week five.
The Eagles have not been told to change their plans and are still planning on flying to Tampa Bay on Saturday.
According to NFL Rule 17, Article 9, if the game is postponed it would be required to be played this Monday or Tuesday or a Tuesday later in the season.
At this point, though, it appears that the game will be played without any interruption.
Matt Lombardo is the Editor-In-Chief of Eagledelphia and also an on-air personality on 97.5 FM The Fanatic in Philadelphia. Join the conversation and follow Matt on Twitter.
