The situation the Giants feared regarding running back David Wilson became a reality on Tuesday when Wilson — coming off neck surgery — was forced out of practice with a neck burner.
That’s an ominous injury for a player who had to face his football mortality after suffering a herniated disk in his neck last season. In January, Wilson underwent fusion of two neck vertebrae and, at the time, it was also determined he had spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal cord.
After rest and rehab, Wilson was cleared for full contact at the start of training camp and looked quick and frisky in the first week of practice.
But he didn’t make it out of the seventh practice of camp. Tom Coughlin said Wilson got “stung’’ and did not know if Wilson experienced any numbness. A burner is usually associated with a nerve injury, which can cause weakness in the muscles or pain or numbness in the arms.
“He got a burner,’’ Coughlin said. “We’ll see. We’ll hear what they have to say first. We were praying that it would be not an issue, that he would be able to come back and just go to work and he was cleared, as you know. We’ll see. I’m not going to speculate on what it is. We’ll have to see what the doctors say.’’
Wilson was sent to the Hospital for Special Surgery for a battery of tests to determine the effects of the burner.
Wilson, after catching a shovel pass from Curtis Painter, turned up the field and, head down, ran into the back of guard Eric Herman.
The Giants weren’t overdoing it with Wilson. He has been taking snaps in a running-back rotation, with newly signed Rashad Jennings, a veteran from the Raiders moving in as the starter. General manager Jerry Reese said earlier this offseason any contribution the team received from Wilson this season would be “a bonus’’ but that his rehab had progressed without any setbacks.
Still, Reese fortified the backfield by not only signing Jennings but also by using a fourth-round draft pick on Andre Williams, a Heisman Trophy candidate after leading the nation in rushing at Boston College. Veteran Peyton Hillis and second-year Michael Cox also return.
Wilson maintains he never experienced any pain throughout the ordeal with his neck and spoke during the first week of camp of having no reservations about full contact. On Friday, with the Giants wearing shoulder pads for the first time in camp, Wilson got his first real test when he collided headfirst with safety Cooper Taylor. Wilson said the contact “felt good’’ and he came out of it unscathed.