ALBANY — It has been a long time since Osi Umenyiora arrived at training camp happy and healthy.
“Maybe before 2006, maybe,’’ Umenyiora said yesterday. “Because ’06 was when I had the little hip issue and since then it’s been one thing or another. So it’s been maybe about six years. Yeah, long time. Long time. So I’m happy about it, but I’ve just got to hope that it stays that way.’’
The Giants are hoping a happy, healthy and motivated Umenyiora will provide the defense with a fearsome defensive end trio, joining starters Justin Tuck and Jason Pierre-Paul to wreak the sort of havoc they did when they finally were all healed and performing down the stretch of last season. Umenyiora had knee surgery last summer and missed the first three games of the season, and later missed four of the last five regular-season games with a sprained ankle.
“These last couple of years I’ve been playing with little nagging things here and there,’’ Umenyiora said. “But now for the first time in a while, I feel relatively healthy and I hope I’m able to maintain that throughout the year.’’
Asked if he needs to be monitored for anything, Umenyiora added, “I haven’t even seen the doctors, so that’s the answer right there.’’
Rookie CB Jayron Hosley gave the Giants a scare when he went down and had to be carted off the field with an apparent right knee injury. As it turned out, Hosley suffered a laceration on his knee that required stitches to close.
“He went down and … the falling down is ridiculous,’’ an exasperated coach Tom Coughlin said. “We just fall down. He fell down, he must have fallen on someone’s shoe, that’s the only thing I can think of. He has a laceration or two and he has some stitches in his knee.’’
LB Michael Boley, out with a hamstring issue, was sent to the Hospital for Special Surgery to check out the severity of the strain. … TE Bear Pascoe had a great block on the edge against Jason Pierre-Paul, knocking JPP on his back. Pierre-Paul clearly wasn’t happy with that. On the next play, he first shoved LT Will Beatty and then TE Martellus Bennett out of the way and batted down an Eli Manning pass with a resounding thud. … RB Da’Rel Scott made it to the practice field for the first time all camp, as he sat the three days with an ankle injury. … Coughlin sounded optimistic DE Justin Trattou will not miss an extended amount of time. Trattou has a lateral ankle sprain.