Mykkele Thompson – © USA TODAY Sports Images
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Mykkele Thompson Lost for Year; Landon Collins MCL Sprain: As feared, New York Giants safety Mykkele Thompson’s season is over. The 2015 5th-round draft pick ruptured his Achilles’ tendon in the team’s 23-10 preseason loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Friday night.
It also appears the Giants will be without fellow rookie safety Landon Collins for at least a couple of weeks. Collins sprained the MCL in one of his knees in the game. Collins was the team’s 2nd-round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft.
“I would say it’s longer than a week (that Collins will be out),” said Head Coach Tom Coughlin.
Coughlin could not provide an update on cornerback Jayron Hosley, who suffered a neck injury and a possible concussion in the game as well. “I don’t have any information for you yet (on Hosley). I’m hoping that this is not a long term deal,” said Coughlin.
Cornerback Trumaine McBride also left the contest early with a hamstring injury, but there was no update.
Wide receiver Rueben Randle (knee tendinitis) left the game after only a few plays. “He had struggled when we first got to the practices,” said Coughlin of Randle. “His tendinitis, his patellar tendinitis had bothered him after a couple days off of his feet. He thought he could play, he did not warm-up well, we probably should have shut him down right away, but he had played a few snaps. He definitely was not himself and he was in pain.”
Coughlin was asked about three defensive backs who did not play in the game: cornerback Prince Amukamara (groin), cornerback Chykie Brown (knee), and safety Nat Berhe (calf).
“I don’t see (Brown) coming back right away this week,” said Coughlin.
Coughlin was hopeful that Berhe could return soon, but did not provide much clarification regarding Amukamara.
August 15, 2015 Head Coach Tom Coughlin Conference Call: The following is the transcript from Head Coach Tom Coughlin’s conference call on Saturday afternoon:
Good afternoon everyone, I just had a staff meeting and I spent most of the day looking at the tape. I said just about everything I needed to say last night. It’s the first preseason game. We were able to get everybody dressed into the football game, which was good. We didn’t play well with our ones and perhaps didn’t play well throughout the entire night. We still had chances. As you all know, we ran a kickoff back to the 35, accepted the ball and ran it back to the 35, and then did really nothing with it after we got it in to that point.
Our first group gave up an easy touchdown with Cincinnati driving the ball with their ones then they took primarily their first group out of the game. Offensive team, Eli (Manning) played 15 plays, and the offensive line played 24 plays. I think with Eli we had one opportunity and we did not make it on 3rd and 1. We had a pass in there that was dropped, which would have been our only third down opportunity. Otherwise we really were just three and out, three and out, three and out type things, so not pleased at all with that.
I expected much more, don’t know what the issue was with that, but it does put into perspective the entire day, the work that has to be done and put in here. Questions are going to be asked about the offensive line, we did some things okay. Everybody wants to know how (Ereck) Flowers played, I thought he played okay. I just think as a group we weren’t able to execute together in any capacity that allowed us to have total success with a play. For example, the ball would be run to the left, it would look like we would get to the perimeter and be able to make a nice run with it, and perhaps one of the backside people would have been beaten and a defender was there for a potential cutback or caught the ball carrier before he got to the corner.
I didn’t think our receivers played well. I thought our execution left a lot to be desired and I thought the details and the route work was not very good. We did have a couple opportunities that we let get away from us, particularly there was a post ball that I thought we could have hit for a touchdown, and we didn’t get that done. The quarterback was forced out of the pocket, but prior to that, I thought he could have made a play possibly and got the ball down the field. It was one of those deals where their secondary perhaps was making an error.
As I said, we played a lot of people, had some chances and didn’t do very well with the ones that we had, and then the backup players had an opportunity to get plenty of snaps, and they did get play time, but it wasn’t of a productive nature as such.
We did have a couple of injuries. We all know today the achilles injury to (Mykkele) Thompson. I feel really bad for that young guy and (Landon) Collins has a MCL sprain, and you’re going to ask me how long, but I really don’t know. We’ll see. A lot of that is up to the individual.
Q: Is the season over for Thompson?
His season is over, yes.
Q: Speak on (Rueben) Randle’s knee injury
He had struggled when we first got to the practices. His tendinitis, his patellar tendinitis had bothered him after a couple days off of his feet. He thought he could play, he did not warm-up well, we probably should have shut him down right away, but he had played a few snaps. He definitely was not himself and he was in pain.
Q: You usually don’t play guys who don’t practice, why was it different this time? Was it because this is the preseason?
No, I don’t necessarily agree with your statement. He missed two practice days but the trainers felt and he wanted to go, and he felt like he could go, and with that regard, the number of snaps that anyone was going to get made that a little bit easier decision when the trainers said he can play.
Q: What’s your level of concern after losing the two rookie safeties?
The level of concern has been there since day one because of the nature of where we are. Even going back to Nat Berhe being unable to come in here and practice, one of the few remaining safeties from our roster of a year ago. We obviously drafted two young players that we know were going to be able to help. Now we’ve lost one of those guys, the other issue is how quickly Landon can come back so he doesn’t miss out on anything, because he definitely needed last night. To be honest with you, he needed it. In order to be able to be in position, I think to where he’s seen a great deal of what takes place in the National Football League, and has been in games, and has had a chance to prepare and play, he needed last night. He didn’t get much last night, so certainly there’s concern.
Q: Where does Berhe stand? Is there any update on that? Any closer to maybe coming back than in the past week or so?
A: Well, I hope so. I hope so. I really don’t have much information yet from Ronnie (Barnes) or today’s medical, but I’m hoping that he’s—when we brought him back before, we thought he was going to be able to work his way through this thing before and then all of a sudden he got sore again. Whenever we do get the green light to bring him back, we will do so and we will always have to, and I think until proven, we will have to keep our fingers crossed that he can spend some consistent time on the field and get himself in position to where he can play.
Q: What did you see from the safeties who were out there? Specifically Jeromy Miles and Cooper Taylor?
A: Miles knows the defense and he’s been around Steve Spagnuolo. There’s a guy who we’re fortunate that we have here, to sign now, because of all that. Cooper is learning. He’s learning, he’s come in and after having had all that time off—so he’s started to come back and hopefully he’ll keep growing and learning and so on and so forth. That’s the way, those are the guys that we have and we will work hard to get those guys ready to play.
Q: What did you think about how the safeties performed overall last night when you watched the tape? And what kind of happened on that first touchdown? I know you kind of ran a safety onto the field and it seemed like one of them wasn’t in the right spot on the first touchdown.
A: Yeah, I saw what you saw, but how did they play last night? They did okay. There wasn’t anything overly, overly glaring. Certainly there were some penalties down the field, not that they were involved but it seemed to be as much of anything the big plays. Let them play. Let’s let them play and then we will take it step by step. Certainly as teams become more sophisticated and more comfortable with what they’re going to eventually be represented of their offense, we’ll see more of the ball in the air and we’ll see more of the safeties having to be involved in the play, not only coming to the line of scrimmage but also playing the pass. I can’t answer the questions you want because we’ve got to play some games with these guys back there and see how they go, see how they do.
Q: Is there a chance that Collins is in practice next week? Or is it thinking something longer?
A: I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. I would say it’s longer than a week.
Q: Now that Bennett Jackson is that sort of a nickel-cover guy, slot-cover guy, is he going to have to move to safety full-time now?
A: Well, we were able to bring him down from safety to play the nickel position and he also plays the safety position in that first and second down. So hopefully we can continue to do that. Certainly, he’s going to have to play more safety now.
Q: Did you have an update for Jayron Hosley? With his neck?
A: I don’t have any information for you yet. I’m hoping that this is not a long term deal. See if he can get back in there because he needs the play time and he showed that he certainly can get himself in position and do some of the things we have to do at the corner spot. Didn’t have a bad night at all prior to getting the injury and the injury came flying to the line of scrimmage and he made a tackle in which he got his head banged around a little bit. I don’t have anything for you yet from today, but we’re hoping that Hosley can be cleared to go here real quick.
Q: Is the expectation that Prince is going to be back this week? And either way, do you need to add corners just to have numbers now? Do you feel like you’re getting short at that position?
A: Well, you can certainly count as well as I can and you can never have enough of those guys anyways. If Prince comes back and we get even short-term notice on when some of these other guys will be back, we probably do have enough but otherwise, you’re right, we’ll be down in numbers.
Q: Do you know anything on Chykie Brown? What is the injury first of all and what was the original diagnosis?
A: I don’t see him coming back right away this week.
