Osi Umenyiora

On Friday we found out that Osi Umenyiora had arthroscopic knee surgery and will be out 3-6 weeks.

It is confounding as to why they waited 8 months.. he had a knee problem at the end of last season.  Getting a knee scoped is not a big deal, but it does take time to heal.  Why now?  Why not at the end of last season?

Pete: “Incredible! Who was the doc that cleared him?  They all said Osi’s lack of practice was a ploy!  No one in management stood up for him after 7 years of giving his all.  Where were the trainers and Reese?  Coughlin said ”no surprise.” Gee Tom, if you knew the guy had the knee why would you make him practice?”  

To back up an irate Pete, this kind of stuff with Giants players has happened more than a few times.  It happened last year to Boss.. they dragged their feet throughout the entire offseason, only to operate on him in May.  These guys are not on-off switches who can simply be turned back on and play at 100% effectiveness.  The difference between all teams and all players is not that large, so taking care of health in the offseason is a must. You can try to sweep this stuff under the rug and dismiss it as the Giants trying to avoid surgery before the lockout began, but the pattern is that they wait too long.  They waited too long with Jacobs in 2009 (hurt in Week 1, remember?) and he played ineffectively until Week 17, when he was finally operated on after the team was eliminated.

We have this blog as a place to discuss the Giants.  It is not all that pretty.  If you want it to be pretty, go to the mainstream media and read their a** (Hanlon) kissing reports about the team so that they can get access.  If you think that that does NOT go on, let me tell you that I had the privilege of spending about an hour and a half this past April with a retired sportswriter for a major NY newspaper.  Midway through our conversation, I asked him point blank about whether the beat writers are constrained by what they can say.  He candidly (with implied confidence) admitted that they “probably” were.

Understand that this blog contains writers and commenters that bleed blue.  And Wonder, who is a Jets fan first and a Giants fan second, roots for blue and gives us more objectivity.  When we question an Osi knee, a Boss ankle and a Jacobs knee, we do it because WE CAN.  At least this stuff gets discussed here.  We want a title just as much as any other blog.  Pardon us if we don’t drink the Kool Aid.  Or applaud wildly back in Aug of 2009 when the Giants spent 97M on Manning, knowing that it will eventually make Reese’s life more difficult in managing the cap.  Which is precisely what happened.  That doesn’t make us Eli haters or Reese haters or Giants haters.  It makes this Giants blog a place where we love our team, problems and all, but are willing talk about problems that get in the way of this franchise getting to the promised land, another Super Bowl title.