Things Just Got a Little Better

Dislocated expectations

Last night I had the pleasure of watching the Cowboys and Giants beat the hell out of each other and the Giants came out on the short end of that stick four ways: they lost the game and had three significant injuries. The Redskins play the Giants in two weeks at Redskins Stadium and it will be one of those things fall into place opportunities to get a win against a team at less than full strength.

Of course the Giants were already at less than full strength with a lame duck coach and the greatest Giants tailback ever retiring rather than take that shit another season and Michael Strahan passing on training camp but not on the oxygen on the sidelines.

Quarterback Eli Manning (lol) separated his shoulder and will be out at least four weeks.

Bruising tailback Brandon Jacobs has a sprained MCL in his knee and may be out for a few weeks (the official evaluation period is week to week not day to day).

Defensive end Osi Umenyiora has a meniscus injury (op. cit.) in his left knee and is day to day.

This means the Giants will be faced with the horror of promoting J-Load himself, backup Jared Lorenzen. I saw him in for one play last night where he had to scramble on fourth down and he did not lower his head and put his 285 pound body out there for the contact, he did a kind of sloppy slide. The Giants are now in the market for a backup quarterback and are apparently looking at Byron Leftwich and Chris Simms.

Oh would the irony be so sweet to see Chris Simms leaving the field in Giants Stadium to a shrieking cascade of boos and batteries, the shadow of his father Phil Simms laughing.

At running back the Giants will have to go with Derrick Ward and Reuben Droughns. Derrick has had injury problems and Reuben is a four-team retread.

And at defensive end Michael Strahan will have to step it up and play more downs than he would have wanted, a hot day, 4pm kickoff in Washington in September. Can you say winded by halftime? Osi's backup is Adrian Awasom, a three year veteran with 16 game appearances and no starts. Can you say Clinton Portis off-tackle right? How about Ladell Betts counter-trey right?

But wait it gets worse, or better. The Eagles are next week's opponent, on Monday Night Football no less, and Pro Bowl cornerback Lito Sheppard has a right knee sprain suffered in the Packers game and could be out three to five weeks but definitely will be out next week. Lito's backup is listed as Joselio Hanson, a third year player with 30 game appearances and four starts. He missed all of 2005 (don't know why yet).

As a topping to this cake, Cowboys nose tackle Jason Ferguson was lost for the season with a right biceps tear (ouch!) last night in the Giants game. As you know one of the premises of the 3-4 defense is a solid nose tackle who's essentially occupying the space or two tackles in the 4-3. Jason's backup is listed as Jay Ratliff, a third year player with 20 game appearances and one start.

Takes a bit of the sting off losing Jon Jansen, expecially since Stephon Heyer played so well at the right tackle position.



Eli Manning (lol) and random betty from here.