One very prominent player was missing and a newcomer took his place as the Giants defensive linemen yesterday morning hunkered down inside Giants Stadium. Osi Umenyiora was not in the meeting room, but Mathias Kiwanuka was.
“It is something all of us really wanted,” defensive end Justin Tuck said, “but obviously we didn’t want these circumstances for him to get back in that room.”
Kiwanuka is again a member of the line and just like that, life after Umenyiora has begun.
Today, Umenyiora undergoes surgery to repair a torn lateral meniscus cartilage in his left knee. The coaching staff wasted no time drawing up a contingency plan to fill the gargantuan void created by the absence of Umenyiora, the club’s lone Pro Bowler in 2007.
Kiwanuka, taken with the 32nd pick in the first round of the 2006 NFL Draft, was brought aboard to one day move in as a starting defensive end, but with Umenyiora, Tuck and Michael Strahan all loaded and ready in front of him, the decision last year was made to move Kiwanuka to strong side linebacker in order to get him on the field. He’s been a linebacker for 17 months, but no longer.
“He was more than ready to do whatever we wanted him to do in the best interest of the team,” Tom Coughlin said.
“I was told all along if something were to happen this is a position I could find myself in,” Kiwanuka said. “I am ready to step in there and hopefully there won’t be a letdown at all.”
The newly-created void at strong side linebacker will be filled by Danny Clark, who is entering his ninth NFL season and first with the Giants. Clark had been battling Gerris Wilkinson for the starting weak side linebacker spot. That battle has ended prematurely, with Wilkinson gaining the weak side starting spot.
“It’s an opportunity I was looking to take one way or another,” Wilkinson said. “You never want it to be from an injury to get in there, it’s an opportunity I’m looking forward to.”
Clark played on the strong side last season for the Texans and briefly this summer.
*
WR Plaxico Burress (ankle) practiced fully for the first time this summer. “I decided to pull the old car out of the garage and see how I felt,” Burress said. “Get some of the dust off it. I felt really good. I’m feeling a lot better, 100 percent.” . . . The first roster cut-down from 80 to 75 comes today by 4 p.m. Umenyiora will be placed on injured reserve. The Giants cut WR D.J. Hall, CB Miguel Scott and S Craig Dahl was waived/injured.