Giants: Eli sits out practice

Eli sat out practice Wednesday and Thursday nursing his sore plantar fascia and got treatment on it from the training staff instead. Raiders seem to have as many injuries as the Giants do. They are averaging 10 points per game on the season and are missing their starting RT, their starting RG Robert Gallery and their biggest offensive weapon - RB Darren McFadden. In the good news department, Hixon is practicing on a limited basis and has a good chance of playing this Sunday. Canty has also started to do a little more work with the trainers and his return is at least on the horizon. I am guessing he will be out 2 more weeks and will be able to return after that. Ross is still not doing any work. Hamstring injuries are somewhat unusual for CB's, because they use their hamstrings all the time while backpedaling. But I guess that means that when they injure them, it's really a bad injury.

The reason I brought up Robert Gallery by name is that he has a place in Giants history. Gallery was the can't-miss, sure fire future HOF-er, Anthony Munoz / Orando Pace successor as the next great LT, coming out of college the same year Eli did, in 2004. Kerry Collins was the Giants QB and the Giants had a miserable year in 2003, in great measure because of their awful OL. Everyone loved Kerry Collns as the tough QB who had taken the Giants to the Superbowl after the 2000 season. Rather than taking one of the QBs available in the draft, everyone wanted Ernie Accorsi to trade up to be in position to take Gallery. Give Kerry Collins some protection in the way of an improved OL, get him some better weapons at WR and along with Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey, the Giants would be back in contention in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Al Davis was not going to trade down to give away Gallery and the Raiders drafted Gallery with the second pick in that draft. Accorsi evaluated Eli as a championship caliber QB and pulled the trigger on the Rivers for Manning trade. Gallery has been a near-bust. He started out as RT with the long term plan of moving him to LT when he matured and developed. However, he did not develop, played poorly as RT and rather than being moved out to LT, he was moved to the interior of the OL as RG. He has not played particularly well there either and is holding on to his job mostly because of the big contract he signed. Rather than being the next Anthony Munoz or Oralndo pace, it looks like he's closer to the next Tony Mandrich

I am surprised at exactly how open the Giants have been with Eli's injury. They have advertised his limitations in moving around, in planting and throwing. They should simply say - foot injury. Why give teams the notion that he is having trouble moving and invite them to prepare a blitz-laden defensive game plan that will test his mobility. Let them figure it out for themselves.

Eli has been playing at a very high level this year. His reads and decision making have been very sharp. His passes have been very accurate, his ball placement has been excellent and his deep balls have also be on the money. I still don't get why all the experts automatically place both Roethlisberger and Rivers ahead of Eli as a QB. It used to be Romo that was also ahead of Eli but he's starting to come down a notch or two.

Boss hurt his ankle and knee last week. While he does not have the boot on to immobilize the foot, he is also not practicing and will probably be out this Sunday. If he is out, the word is that rookie T Beatty will play TE in the 2-TE formations. If so, Darcy Johnson will get some balls thrown to him this week and maybe Travis Beckum will become a little more involved in the passing game.

I really would not mind if the Giants started David Carr this week. Giants should have enough to beat the Raiders even with Carr in there. Covering the point spread of 15 1/2 is another matter, but I don't think the coaching staff is worrying about that.