Banged-up Giants? That was last week

So much for all of the hand-wringing about the Giants being injury-plagued. All those August days in Albany when they had 15 guys on the sideline, those practices with only one tight end available, that obsession over who was and wasn’t playing in the preseason games.

Today, on the first day of actual prep for the season opener, all but one of the Giants was on the field. Yes, even Aaron Ross was giving it a go with his plantar fascia injury, running with the team, stretching, even fielding punts on the scout team. The only guy who was no working today was Phillip Dillard (hamstring), and that was expected.

So let’s see where the Giants are right now in terms of injuries. They’ve lost one expected contributor for the season in Domenik Hixon, but they replaced his special teams output with Darius Reynaud and his offensive output with Victor Cruz. They’ll have 22 starting-caliber players starting on Sunday (assuming that Webster and O’Hara come along during the week; they were both working today). They even have some starters able to come off the bench like Osi Umenyiora, Kenny Phillips (or Deon Grant, depending on which direction they go there).

Yes, there were plenty of stories out of training camp about injuries and the horror of the injuries and the concern over the injuries. And there are still concerns about how Phillips will be able to handle a full season and whether Keith Bulluck can be an every-down player eight months after knee surgery and if Shawn Andrews’ back is up to speed. I have some doubts on whether or not Ross will be good enough to play Sunday.

But in reality the goal of the preseason was to have all of the plates spinning for this week. It didn’t really matter whether O’Hara was out for a few weeks or Snee was. The important part was to get everyone to cross the finish line at the same time.

That finish line is in sight. And it looks like the Giants are going to cross it as perhaps one of the healthiest teams in the NFL.