Better late than never. A summary of Wade Phillips' press conference today including all the news on the injury situation.
Miles Austin, Marion Barber, Ken Hamlin, Montrae Holland, Adam Jones, Justin Rogers, Roy Williams and Jason Witten didn't practice today. Adam Jones has a herniated disc, maybe two, in his neck, he'll have it looked at tomorrow, but he's out for this game and maybe for season but we don't think its career-ending surgery or anything like that. He's going to see a doctor for further evaluation tomorrow. Marion Barber did rehab today we'll see about him tomorrow. Ken Hamlin didn't get to the field and rehabbed inside with Montrae Holland. Justin Rogers was sick, Roy Williams and Jason Witten are rehabbing. Witten's ankle is the problem, a sprained ankle. Keith Davis was limited, Mike Jenkins was limited but also practiced, and Jay Ratliff was listed as limited.
There's plenty more after the jump.
Bradie James, Isaiah Stanback and DeMarcus Ware fully participated in practice. Courtney Brown and Tra Battle played safety. Keith Davis also practiced.
It's got to be disappointing for Adam, to get back after a lot of things, but that's what happened. I'm assuming it happened on the punt return. He was in pain during the game. On the plane home I asked him if he was OK, like I do with a lot of the guys and he said no, I'm not OK, my neck hurts. Most say I'm OK but he was hurt. He's never been a problem with his on-the-field practice attitude, I thought he played well, we never got him loose on kick returns, that's more a matter of timing, doing it more than what we have this year with him. We never had a problem with him in practice, meetings, he did all the right things.
I asked Barber how he felt and he said he felt a lot better, that's some progress, he thought he could run on it, we'll see. I think the toe and the calf are better.
Anthony Henry would only play safety in the base defense as an emergency. Henry and Alan Ball are emergency guys. We have four safeties if all are healthy. He'll play in sub-packages. If we get Jenkins back we'll stick with that, Jenkins will play corner on the subs and we get the best guys on the field. Henry can play safety in the sub-package but he's not ready for first and second down.
Patrick Crayton has been good on punts, his average is real good. Terence Newman will back him up on punts. Isaiah Stanback and Orlando Scandrick are the kickoff return guys.
Roy Williams has plantar fasciitis, sprained foot, you can rest it and it feels good but then you practice and it feels bad, we'll rest it all we can this week for the game. I think he's fine in knowing what to do and not practicing, he's out there when we walk through stuff, he has no problem with knowing it. But the timing is hard to get anyway, and he limped in the second half of the game.
The Giants are the top rushing team, give them credit they average over 150 yards a game. They were ahead 21-7 at the half (in the earlier game) so they ran the ball in the second half. We didn't do a good job there, but our guys have met the challenge in correcting mistakes, some of it was coaching and we tried to get them in right places. They rushed for 60-70 yards against our sub-packages. We'll remedy that. (How?) I won't tell.
Tackling is important. Brandon Jacobs is a hard guy to tackle, you need to get him going sideways instead of downhill, early in the game he is strong. You got to stop the run first, they want to run the ball, they didn't do it well last week so they'll want to this week. You lose a top WR like Plaxico Burress, you plan differently for them, Dominique Hixon is good but it's hard to blitz with Burress out there 1-on-1 and he's 6' 5" and your CB is 5' 11". We did that last year in the first game and haven't since. That's part of playing in your division and knowing their best players.
Roy Williams, Montrae Holland, Ken Hamlin and Marion Barber will probably rehab again tomorrow. Adam Jones is definitely out. I think Hamlin will go but Courtney Brown would start at free safety if he doesn't. Tra Battle plays both spots. Henry doesn't know enough for FS yet. Keith Davis got his injury in the first half, we took him in and he came back out and said he can play and the trainers agreed and he played well. Same thing now, he said he could practice and did most of practice. I think he'll play. He made plays on defense and ST after the injury. Injuries are different with each player, people are different, we're not putting him in harms way. Mentally he's a tough guy and won't let pain keep him from playing, Witten is like that, too.