Thursday, September 24, 2009

Giants: Phillips on IR

This is a real bad injury for the Giants. Kenny Phillips was emerging as a star on defense, playing great both in the passing game as well as giving good run support. The last two years the Giants were lucky and did not have a lot of injuries, but perhaps the laws of chance are catching up to them this year with a ton of injuries on the defense. What makes this injury particularly bad is that the Giants did not come into the season with a "typical" distribution of players at each position group. Apparently, they went with a strategy of keeping the best athletes on the roster sacrificing balance and depth at some positions. They are very deep in the OL, the DL and LB, and are thin at S. The Giants came in to the season with only four safeties, one of them Bruce Johnson, who has been playing nickel-back because the injuries to Ross and Dockery shortened the CB rotations. With those 2 CBs out, it means that the Giants had only 3 S on the roster and now are down to 2: C.C. Brown and Michael Johnson. They absolutely have to sign a S and add him to the roster. In fact with depth at LB and WR, maybe the Giants will make a trade for a starting S from some other team instead of picking one off of the scrap heap of released players.

Recent safeties that have been released are: Jamaal Fudge from the Falcons and Aaron Rouse from the Packers. I don't know much about Jamaal Fudge, but Rouse has been in the league for 3 years and has played a little bit. Maybe the Giants talk Rodney Harrison out of retirement (jk).

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Update:

Giants did what I thought they might and signed Alan Rousse who was just released form the Packers. He's not great, but he's a competent, NFL caliber S.

Patellar arthritis is a serious problem for Phillips. It could affect his career.

-wm