On Saturday night, we noted re Alford that "they said it was a sprain but it looked worse" and we said to wait for confirmation. It was worse. Torn MCL and partially torn ACL. One of the original email guys (from the precursor to this blog, pre 2006) is an MD and said he was fairly confident it was a torn MCL. And he reminded me that they said the same thing about Osi before revealing the full extent of the injury.
Alford is not a loss on the scale of Osi Umenyiora. But this is the first MAJOR injury of 2009. Remember, DL is not like any other unit. Every person on the roster who is on the DL is a starter. Everyone. They ALL play. Every time you see tongues hanging out it in the Q4, every time you see Osi or Tuck on the sidelines wondering why they are there.. it is because these guys get exhausted getting pounded on by 325 lb. linemen and then chasing after QBs play after play for 60 minutes. So Alford is a big loss.
We also found out yesterday that Canty's injury is a hamstring tear. This from the DL who has not missed a single game in his 4 year career. It is worth noting that the 3 prime (high profile) free agent signings of Boley, Canty and Bernard have not yielded a single snap so far. Bernard is on the mend and Coughlin hopes that he'll get practice and minutes this Saturday night, but this is not like any of them are "game ready."
Coughlin and Motown (last night) remind us we are not deep anymore at DL. How true. Alford: season-ending IR? Not the DL roster solution we were looking for.
One more item.. Alford was a long snapper, so this makes Zak DeOssie's chances for a roster spot significantly greater. After all, who else on this team is a long snapper?! DeOssie did not add anything to our LB corp, so we were quietly hoping he would not make the squad so that another LBer would.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Jay Alford- Torn MCL
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4 comments:
All you wrote has a very bad feeling to it, for the beginning of the season.....Alford--out, Canty--torn hamstring, Boley--recovering from surgery, Robbins---slowly recovering from surgery, Cofield--recovering from surgery. What we all saw as our strength has now greatly weakened, short term.
Puts more pressure on Manning & the O. I Don't feel confident about their ability to deliver.
These are not good signs at the present, but I do know one thing. All three running backs looked very good even with a compromised O-Line.
So, with that said....
Against the Jets I want to see us open up the O and see what we have with our passing game. I'm not talking about divulging strategy for the regular season, just simple stuff. I would like to see Manning throwing to Barden & Nicks this week. (They both seem to catch the ball well) Not entirely sold on Smith as our #1. He still seems to be a slot receiver at best, I hope I'm wrong. I'm sure I've seen enough of Woodson to know he is not the answer. Bomar should see some time this week. I'll be OK with him as our inactive #3.
Attention Gilbrown....
Do you even know that Kevin Boss is on our team. Jeeeeeesus!!!!
Did anybody see Peter King quoting Tom Brady today about the Super Bowl?
"That four-man rush will get to you, and if those guys up front are good, which the Giants were, they can still keep the integrity of the secondary intact,'' he said. "It's hard to do. Normally, if you got a blitz, then you're going to have to throw the ball quick. But if you rush with four and can get to the passer, I mean, that's the best defense in the world. So few guys can do that, there are so few pass rushers, or a group of pass rushers that can attack the quarterback like the Giants or that great defensive teams do, when you sit back there quarterbacking you see like a two-high defense, and you see Michael Strahan and Osi [Umenyiora] and [Justin] Tuck and [Barry] Cofield, you're like, 'Man I better just catch it and try to find someone as fast as I can.'"
Makes you realize how special those four -- plus Alford -- were. And how hard it really is to replace a Strahan.
Robbins, too. I forgot to mention him.
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