The New York Giants were already said to be concerned that they may be a bit thin on the backend when they face the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night, thanks to a pectoral injury sustained by cornerback Prince Amukamara, as reported by Ebenezer Samuel of the New York Daily News. Losing Amukamara, one half of the team's top corner pairing, would leave Big Blue with little in the way of secondary depth against a Philly offense that seems to be rounding into form. And while that is, in itself, troubling for Giants fans, Amukamara's injury situation may actually be worse than initially reported.
ESPN's Josina Anderson reported early Thursday that Amukamara's status isn't just in question for this weekend against the Eagles - he's also likely to miss the next several weeks. Per Anderson, Amukamara actually has a "partial tear" of his pectoral muscle that will keep him out a "minimum" of 3-4 weeks.
While Amukamara has failed to live up to the hype as a former first round pick, he's certainly played more like the Giants best cover man over the last couple of seasons, and on a Giants 'D' mostly devoid of top talent, he's been a key contributor. Thus far in 2015, Amukamara has 32 tackles, seven passes defensed, an interception and a forced fumble. Impressively, Amukamara played in 63 of 68 defensive snaps the Giants took against the San Francisco 49ers this past Sunday night, so there's no doubting his toughness. There is, however, plenty of room to doubt his ability to stay healthy.
Amukamara appeared in just seven games his rookie season, 13 games during his sophomore campaign and eight games in 2014. He's played a full slate of 16 regular season games just once during his now five-year NFL career since the Giants drafted him out of Nebraska in 2011. Overall, he's appeared in just 49 of a possible 80 career regular season games.
The return of defensive coordinator Steve Spagnolo this offseason was viewed as a boon to New York, but a unit that finished 29th in total team defense last year is currently ranked 27th. A large part of that is due to injury - a rash of preseason safety injuries decimated the deep portion of the team's secondary, franchise tagged defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul blew off a handful of fingers and has yet to see the field, effectively destorying the team's pass rush, 27-year-old rookie Uani' Unga has been forced to take over the middle linebacker spot after Jon Beason went down with a concussion, strongside 'backer Devon Kennard missed the Niners game with a hamstring injury and run-stopping defensive end Robert Ayers has been limited recently as well - so it's somewhat understandable that the Giants 'D' simply hasn't been up to snuff.
But that only serves to increase the sting of Amukamara's expected absence. A pass defense that is currently ranked dead-last in the league, allowing an astounding average of 304.2 passing yards per game, can certainly ill-afford to lose their top corner as well. With the Eagles passing game trending up - after five games they're averaging 245.8 yards per game, good enough for 13th, and 23.4 points, good enough for 14th - if Sam Bradford and the Philly offense can get rolling early, it could prove nearly impossible for the Giants to stop them, forcing Eli Manning and the New York offense to air it out in an attempt to keep pace, making themselves susceptible to a Philadelphia defense that has proven quite opportunistic thus far this season.
And with games against Dallas and New Orleans looming thereafter, the already-weak Giants pass defense may be nearing historically bad numbers by the time Amukamara returns.
