HOUSTON — Texans rookie tight end Anthony Hill was hospitalized this week with swine flu in the first confirmed such case in an NFL player this season.
Hill is the only player on the team believed to have swine flu and other players are being monitored, Texans vice president of communications Tony Wyllie said Friday.
Hill, a fourth-round pick from North Carolina State, spent two nights in the hospital and told KRIV-TV in Houston that he was released from the hospital Friday morning.
“In the beginning doctors thought it was pneumonia,” Hill told the station. “It wasn’t. Then (Thursday) results for swine flu came back and it was positive. I was already taking medicine for both.”
Coach Gary Kubiak said there were a few players who felt ill Thursday but that they were OK by Friday.
“There’s no panic at all,” he said. “We handled it well as an organization (Thursday) evening and understood what was going on, got on top of anybody who wasn’t feeling good (Thursday) evening and (Friday) we responded well. Everybody was fine.”
• Texans running back Ryan Moats, who was denied the chance to say a final goodbye to his mother-in-law Jonetta Collinsworth as she succumbed to breast cancer because of an ugly incident with a police officer that gained national attention last spring, will wear pink shoes and gloves starting this week as part of the NFL’s “Crucial Catch” campaign promoting breast cancer screening.
“If I could change anything, I would love for it not to happen and for Jo to be here,” Moats said about his mother- in-law. “But bad things happen and you can make good things out of them.”
Footnotes.
Kyle Boller will make his first start for the Rams on Sunday against the 49ers as Marc Bulger rests his injured shoulder.
• Seahawks defensive end Patrick Kerney was fined $5,000 for roughing the passer when he unnecessarily drove Chicago’s Jay Cutler to the ground, and San Francisco defensive end Justin Smith was fined $5,000 for hitting Brett Favre in the knee area during Minnesota’s 27-24 victory Sunday.
The Associated Press
