Injury Report

Tom Coughlin said both center Shaun O'Hara (ankle) and S Kenny Phillips (PUP-microfracture knee surgery) should be ready to practice Monday. Of course, everybody on this blog, along with the rest of the world, will be more curious to see how Phillips does in his first action since Game 2 of last season.

As far as recent injuries go, Coughlin said he's not going to speculate on how long LG Rich Seubert might be out with a broken hand. Coughlin said Seubert injured the hand while pass protecting, when he got it stuck in somebody's facemask. He continued the drill, but found out later it was broken.

Coughlin said he's not going to rush to judgement until the doctor sees him tomorrow. But he no longer buys the long-held concept that a broken hand is not the end of the world for an offensive lineman.

"That is one of the biggest fallacies in the world," Coughlin said. "There was a time when I thought the same thing that you did, ‘Oh yeah, broken hand, you just tape it up, put a cast on and you go play with it,’ but they don’t do that today. If the metacarpal twists, they have to do surgery and put a pin in it and then you could be out for six weeks. They have to be very careful with that.

"If they go light early, if they just allow that thing to heal a little bit for a couple weeks to the point where they don’t think that’s the risk and they put a cast on it, then the guy can usually play. The last few times that this has happened, and anything that I have been involved in, they have always done this, so we’re not going to let him go right back out."

But whether Seubert would be out one or two weeks, or longer, Coughlin would not say. What he did say he'll use different combinations on the left side while Seubert heals, putting David Diehl inside next to Will Beatty at times, while at others keeping Diehl outside while inserting Guy Whimper and rookie Mitch Petrus at left guard. Could be an interesting time for experimentation.

Coughlin also said Steve Smith's groin injury occurred when he made a move to get away from press coverage. "Probably got jammed up top and all of a sudden he was out," Coughlin said.

EP