CB Aaron Ross, who missed the first nine weeks with a left hamstring injury, re-injured himself yesterday and is now listed as day-to-day.

With Corey Webster’s (knee) status for Monday’s game in Washington day-to-day as well, Ross’ injury puts a severe strain on an already embattled unit.

Terrell Thomas will continue to start at one corner and Kevin Dockery would draw the start opposite him if Ross or Webster cannot go.

This is bad news, obviously, for the Giants.  They will now have to resort back to using Aaron Rouse, C.C. Brown and Bruce Johnson in certain coverage situations where they have had issues all year.

Mike Garafolo of the Newark Star-Ledger has an interesting story on why Danny Ware’s father (Danny Ware Sr) hasn’t seen his son play an NFL football game….until tomorrow.

Ralph Vacchiano of the nydailynews.com has a story on how the Giants replace the “heart” taken out of the defense by MLB Antonio Pierce’s injury.

Tom Rock of Newsday reports on Michael Strahan’s speech to the team at practice yesterday.

Find out what Aaron Ross’s gold medal winning fiancee Sanya Richards did to help him recover from his injury.

Aaron Ross took snaps at practice today with the second unit, but not at corner. Ross was playing, the much maligned, safety position. Don’t expect any moves right away but it could be coming down the stretch, especially if Aaron Rouse struggles with his newly acquired starting spot. Remember Rouse didn’t really earn the spot, he fell into it after CC Brown proved he couldn’t handle the position. CC struggled so much in communication he admitted to playing his own coverage on a deep ball to DeSean Jackson. Ross has now practiced 4 days in a row, a couple at safety, but the Giants are limited at the spot so it’s not a definite indication that he is on the move, but with there recent struggles it certainly bares watching.

According to Ralph Vacchiano, Coughlin emphasized that Ross “is a corner”. And when he was asked if Ross could play another position in a game, he said “Not at this point in time. But you never know.” Meanwhile Ross had this to say: “I can (play safety),” Ross said. “I don’t know if I’m going to or not, but I can. We haven’t sat down and talked about it yet,” Ross said. Whatever he has planned for me, I’m all in.”

Ross is now into his third comeback attempt and would probably do anything to see the field, including moving to safety. While I don’t see the move happening this Sunday, it may come later in the season. With all the players now healthy the Giants will have to make some interesting decisions for there inactives. Most likely the usuals, WR Sinorice Moss,  T Guy Whimper,  G Adam Koets, WR Ramses Barden, and RB Gartrell Johnson will be on the list but they may now have to add DE Tollefson and one of the corners. With CB Bruce Johnson doing nicely at the nickel it’s likely to come down to Dockery/Ross, but for now Dockery is also gunner on special teams, although he has struggled lately.

With this recent four game skid the giants have encountered, we all can pretty much agree that the part of the team that has been hurting the most is the defense. Of course, one has to factor in the enormous amount of injuries the defense has dealt with, and fortunately there is some potential good news regarding CB Aaron Ross.

Ross was back in practice today and coach Tom Coughlin said  that he “seemed to work well.” the Giants haven’t officially activated him yet, but to see him finally working on the practice field has to be an encouraging sign for an ailing secondary.

Also, with Gerris Wilkinson going on the IR, the Gmen have signed youngster D.J. Johnson as a cornerback. Johnson, who was signed by the Broncos back in April, has been a practice squad player for them thus far this season.

Coughlin said that Johnson could be used as both a cornerback and safety, but probably will be used more primarily in the latter.

I’m going to be optimistic here and say that with a healthy Aaron Ross coming back into the starting secondary, the Giants maybe could be injected with some new life. Although he’s young, Ross is kind of the leader of this even younger secondary, and there’s no doubt that the secondary itself as well as the rest of the Giants defense has missed his playmaking abilities.

I was pretty sure Ross wasn’t going to play a down this year, with his mysterious Jose Reyes type injury. Unlike Reyes, he is actually coming back.

I’d like to end this little excerpt of mine with a quote from Mr. Coughlin himself. Hopefully this will make you guys feel a little better going into the second half of the season.

Q:  Historically when this team has had its back to the wall they have found a way to come though.  Do you sense they can rally around that in the second half of the season?

Coughlin: I certainly think that we can.  And I believe that we can.  I believe that we have the players.  We have the staff.  We have the ‘know how.’  And there isn’t any doubt — you can ‘should have, would have, could have’ for the last month and I can give you a bunch of answers.  But they don’t mean anything.  The facts are the facts.  And what I would like them to do is to go have three or four days with their families and reflect on our situation and come back here with a greater purpose and a greater desire to get this righted.  Historically it can be done.

Lets play a game, I’ll write down some quotes, you tell me which  player is being described:

“Just a leg issue,  he is day to day”

“Tried to run, but had a setback, should be ready in a couple weeks”

“He can’t make it worse by playing.”

“Suffered a new injury to the hamstring”

“Could be out a while”

“The injury is actually in the hamstring, located behing the knee”

“Tried to run, but  was shut down”

“Suffered another setback”

“No timetable for his return, again the injury is the hamstring behind the knee.”

By now its obvious right? Ok here is your answer, the player in question is none other then……nope not Aaron Ross, but Jose Reyes. And yet after scanning the Giants quotes they match up almost entirely. The most worrisome quote is the description of the injury, “behind the knee.” Ross has no timetable for a return and we all know that Reyes just had surgery to repair his hamstring which will put him out of baseball activities for up to 4 months. I fear Ross may be headed down this path, again I am not a doctor, but the constant setbacks and lack of healing is disturbing.

The Ross Situation

Aaron Ross has been hobbled by a nagging hamstring injury, has not appeared in a regular season game and is practicing on a limited basis.

The question posed to me was…if he cant’ play, why wasn’t he placed on the PUP list? It doesn’t appear he had any chance of playing before Week 6, which is the week a team must make a decision on a PUP player.  Did they keep him around to rehab him?  They’re wasting a roster spot in the interim…

Here’s the answer…..

Ross would have to have been placed on the PUP on the outset of training camp in order to be on that list right now.  He injured the hamstring in camp and the Giants could not place him on any list except IR, which at the current moment, would not be wise since his injury is not deemed as season-ending.

Injury Updates

WR Domenik Hixon, DT Chris Canty (calf) and RB Danny Ware (elbow) will miss this week’s game vs Kansas City.  RB Ahmad Bradshaw (foot) did not practice all week.  His foot was in a protective boot. The coaches are confident he will play, though.

The other banged-up players all practiced this week: DE Justin Tuck (shoulder), LB Clint Sintim (groin), OL Adam Koets (ankle) and Kareem McKenzie (knee), CB Kevin Dockery (hamstring), WR Hakeem Nicks (foot), LB Chase Blackburn (ankle) and OL Rich Seubert (shoulder). Which of these will not dress on Sunday is still unknown.

According to Ralph Vacchiano of the Daily News CB Aaron Ross will be out another week with a sore hamstring. Ross begged team doctor to have platelet-rich plasma therapy that DE Chris Canty had on his hamstring, Canty was back on the field 2 weeks later. Ross has reacted well to the therapy but is still suffering from pain behind the knee, and is likely out another week.

If you’re a mets fan this is starting to sound dangerously like Jose Reyes’s injury (behind the knee), something that forced him out for over three months. Football and baseball are very different sports and it’s unlikely the injury lasts nearly as long, but one never knows. Ross had this to say about surgery

“I’m praying and hoping not,” Ross said. “Myself or the doctor didn’t expect it to last this long. I thought I was going to be back for Game 1. Now I’m probably going to have to sit out Game 2. Very frustrating.”

Good news is Bruce Johnson had a nice game in the nickel and Kevin Dockery’s injured hamstring does not seem as bad as Ross’s.

Mike Garafolo of the Newark Star-Ledger and SNY posted his 5 things to watch for going into tonight’s preseason game with the New York Jets.

Among those 5 topics Garafolo discussed, one was CB Terrell Thomas. Aaron Ross is out for the rest of the preseason, and with that, Thomas moves on the depth chart up to third corner. Look for Thomas to see a lot of field time, not only in nickel and dime packages, but base defense packages as well.

CB Kevin Dockery will start in place of the injured Ross.

Thomas has had an excellent training camp. I wouldn’t be surprised if he outplays Dockery tonight, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Thomas starting at corner if Ross’s injury nags him into the regular season.

Ross Injury Opening The Door For Thomas

CB Aaron Ross‘ hamstring injury is a Catch-22 situation. If he continues to practice on it, it will not heal. If he doesn’t, Terrell Thomas will get his reps, and possibly steal his starting job.

Ross said he was about “80%”, which isn’t good enough to get him on the field this Saturday against the Bears in Chicago. He is aiming for the season opener Sept. 13 vs the Redskins.

By that time, Thomas may have convinced the coaches that he is the better player.

Rocky Bernard Practices, Canty Does Not

Rocky Bernard and Chris Canty, the two defensive linemen the Giants added via free agency this past off-season, have been off to slow starts to put it nicely.

Bernard finally hit the playing field yesterday, but Canty was held out again with a sore hamstring.

The Giants need these two players in their defensive line rotation for depth purposes. Currently, Fred Robbins, Barry Cofield and Jay Alford are ahead of them on the depth charts.

Bernard said he felt good and Canty was optimistic that he would be back on the field soon.

Giants Playing It Safe With Snee

All-Pro OG Chris Snee is still sidelined with a bad knee. Tom Coughlin did not know when Snee would be ready. In order to get him ready, they have decided to hold Snee out of action until the swelling in the knee had subsided. Needless to say, he will not play Saturday in Chicago.

In his place, the Giants will start either Tutan Reyes or Kevin Boothe. Both are practicing with the first team.