The Giants got some bad news on their young safety Kenny Phillips. The 2008 first-round draft pick found out he has patella femoral arthritis. Yeah, it’s as bad as it sounds.
He has been placed on injured reserve, effectively ending his season. His knee is banged up pretty good and I have to wonder what this means for his career. They think he can come back and be ok, but with knee injuries like this you never know.
“It never crossed my mind, ever,” Phillips said. “I knew the situation. I just felt I could push it through the season. So to get this news is a real shock.”
He has had this for a little while and has been held out of a lot of practices, but I don’t think anyone thought it was this serious.
“I really feel for Kenny because he had worked so hard during the offseason to prepare himself for the ’09 season,” general manager Jerry Reese said. “He had a great camp and was just beginning to come into his own and showed flashes of being one of the premier safeties in the NFL. We expect him to recover from this setback and come back stronger than ever. This league is about making adjustments and we will do that.”
Phillips was coming off a great game against Dallas, where he picked off Tony Romo twice.
“The most important thing for us right now is to realize it’s an emotional time for Kenny Phillips,” said coach Tom Coughlin. “He had an excellent training camp. He played the deep ball, really, unlike anybody we’ve had around here. He has two interceptions with two outstanding plays the other night, he leads the team in tackles. His presence is felt in really every category on special teams and defense. He was quietly very strong back in the secondary. We were very excited about what we thought could be a Pro Bowl year for our free safety.
“Unfortunately, it’s a difficult time for all of us and for Kenny. Our concerns are about Kenny from an emotional standpoint, because this morning he looked like he’d lost his best friend. He’s really down. But it’s something the doctors felt was needed to be corrected right now, so what’s in the best interest of the player is being done. I’m sure he’ll rehab and be back with us in the spring.”
This does a lot of damage to a Giants secondary that’s not very good to begin with. They claimed Aaron Rouse off of waivers from the Packers and he will take over for Phillips. Rouse played in the first two games for the Packers this year, but wasn’t put on waivers because he did a great job.
