NFL

Giants expect big things from Osi

It wasn’t long ago when the Giants were the New York football team with the locker room filled with talkers. Michael Strahan, Tiki Barber, Plaxico Burress, Jeremy Shockey and Antonio Pierce always seemed to make headlines whenever they opened their mouths. They did so much talking you wondered when anyone was going to start listening to quarterback Eli Manning.

It was a successful formula during the championship run to Super Bowl XLII. Barber had retired by then and Shockey was out with an injury, but Burress, Strahan and Pierce were the clear vocal leaders with Manning finally finding some room for his voice. But the 2010 Giants are running low on lightning rods, something that may not necessarily be a good thing.

It was evident yesterday when defensive end Osi Umenyiora was excused from practice after aggravating a chronically sore hip. With defensive end Justin Tuck not granting interviews, the lack of star power on the Giants defense was noticeable. Perhaps that’s one reason the team wants to give Umenyiora the best chance to put a troubled 2009 behind him and be a productive leader in 2010.

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“I expect Osi to have a big season,” Giants general manager Jerry Reese said after yesterday’s practice. “He wants to. He’s a proud kid as we all know. I expect him to come in and really kill it [next season]. He really wants to and I expect him to do it.”

Being proud and being filled with pride are two different things. It seemed Umenyiora displayed more of the latter last year when he left training camp without permission for a day and a few months later was openly critical of the coaching staff for demoting him to a situational pass rusher for the final month of the season. The relationship between the player and the team didn’t seem much better in February when Umenyiora hinted he wanted to be traded if he wasn’t guaranteed a starting role.

With the hiring of new defensive coordinator Perry Fewell, Umenyiora seemed to be “in a good place,” according to coach Tom Coughlin. And Reese said Umenyiora has displayed a renewed since of purpose this summer.

“I think he has something to prove to himself and something to prove to his teammates and to the fans and to everybody,” Reese said of the Giants’ active sack leader. “He wants to prove that he’s still a good football player. We believe he’s still a good football player, and we expect him to play well.”

It remains to be seen whether the hip becomes problematic. Surgery has been mentioned, though the current course is rest and rehab. Meanwhile, Mathias Kiwanuka is manning the starting spot opposite Tuck. In his fifth season, Kiwanuka has the demeanor to evolve into a leader but that only happens if Umenyiora can’t regain his starting job. Right now, Tuck is the Giants’ main defensive star for a franchise that is usually filled with big names and big talkers.

“We’d like for all the veterans to be leaders,” Reese said. “But everybody is not built to be a leader. Some guys can vocalize leadership and some lead by example.”

Umenyiora has always been the type to lead by example even though his example wasn’t very good last year. Still, the Giants need someone to fill the leadership role left by Pierce even though they don’t expect Umenyiora to become a rah-rah guy overnight. “If he’s not a leader, that’s OK as long as he plays well and he’s on board and does what we ask him to do,” Reese said.

In his eighth season, this should be the time when Umenyiora is polishing his legacy with the Giants. It’s not too late. He can step forward or step off.

george.willis@nypost.com